From Oyinlola to Aregbesola, Oyetola and Adeleke; what happened to Osun's drains, canals, waterways and waste management?
By Comrade Wale Balogun, Convener, Mẹkunnu Kọya
The serious flooding now affecting parts of Osun State is more than a seasonal inconvenience. Homes, shops, businesses and personal belongings are being destroyed, while families are again being exposed to hardship and uncertainty.
For many residents, the situation inevitably brings back memories of an earlier period when the state government embarked on a deliberate programme of dredging rivers, opening waterways, expanding drainage channels, removing obstructions and deploying O'YES cadets to keep public spaces and drainage corridors clean.
A peer review of the four administrations of Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Rauf Aregbesola, Gboyega Oyetola and Ademola Adeleke therefore provides useful lessons.
Oyinlola: when flooding became a recurring crisis
The later Oyinlola years were marked by serious flooding, culminating in the devastating 2010 experience that preceded the change of government. Gbonmi became one of the symbolic examples.
The name itself became part of the political folklore of Osogbo because of the area's repeated flooding. In a 2016 report, Punch recalled that a former governor had jokingly told residents during a television programme that they should either be prepared to continue bailing water from their houses or relocate because, having chosen to live there, they had “met the water.” The former governor referred to was Olagunsoye Oyinlola.
Whatever the humour intended, the statement is revealing of an older philosophy of governance: treating a flood prone community as though its residents, rather than government, bore the primary responsibility for the environmental danger.
Good governance should take the opposite approach, identify the danger, intervene before disaster and protect citizens and their property.
Aregbesola: from reaction to prevention
Aregbesola fundamentally changed the approach. His administration introduced O'Clean, expanded waste management, deployed O'YES cadets for sanitation and environmental work, cleared vegetation, desilted waterways and embarked on major channelisation projects.
The important distinction was that the government did not wait for flood victims to start bailing water before acting. It attempted to remove the conditions that produced the flooding.
The scale was considerable. Contemporary reporting recorded extensive desilting of rivers, streams and canals across Osun, including major interventions in Osogbo. By 2018, The Guardian reported that approximately 861 kilometres of waterways, canals and streams had been desilted over seven years.
Gbonmi: the clearest test case
The most compelling evidence is Gbonmi itself. The administration implemented the Gbonmi–Obaate, Okooko River channelisation project. The Guardian reported that Gbonmi, previously known for frequent flooding, had remained flood free for seven years following the intervention. Similar channelisation works were undertaken around Rasco, Alekunwodo and Old Nitel, Alekunwodo.
A 2016 letter published by The Nation provides an even more personal account. A resident described how his parents' home in Gbonmi had flooded every year before 2011, forcing the family to consider relocating. After Aregbesola's desilting and waterway clearing programme, the family reported that they no longer had to abandon the house during the rains.
This is the practical meaning of preventive governance. The government did not tell Gbonmi residents to learn how to bail water. It attacked the cause of the problem.
Oyetola: some continuity, but not the same momentum
Oyetola inherited both the environmental infrastructure and the institutional machinery established under Aregbesola, under whom he had served as Chief of Staff.
To his credit, he did not completely abandon the environmental programme.
His administration continued dredging. In 2019 and 2020, it cleared and dredged several rivers and waterways, including the Osun River, Opopo River, Rasco Stream and other channels. It also strengthened enforcement against indiscriminate refuse disposal.
Oyetola also retained and later expanded O'YES. His administration increased cadet allowances and described the scheme as a legacy programme that should be sustained.
But the critical question is continuity of intensity and strategic purpose.
Aregbesola's environmental programme had been conceived as a broad, visible and continuous intervention involving sanitation, waste collection, drainage, canalisation, river dredging, vegetation control and youth mobilisation.
Under Oyetola, some of these components continued, but the momentum and comprehensive character of the earlier intervention were less evident. The result was that recurring flooding remained a problem in places such as Gbonmi, Gbodofon, Rasco, Alekunwodo and other Osogbo communities.
The 2019 flooding itself demonstrated that the earlier gains required much more systematic maintenance and expansion. More than 100 houses were reported submerged in Osogbo, with Gbonmi, Gbodofon, Awosuru and other areas affected.
Thus, the fairest criticism of Oyetola is not that he did nothing, but that he did not build sufficiently on the scale and integrated preventive approach of the administration he had served.
Adeleke: renewed intervention, but the problem remains
The Adeleke administration inherited the same environmental challenge. It has undertaken renewed dredging and drainage clearance, including work on the Osun River in Osogbo, and has warned residents against dumping refuse into waterways.
The administration has also responded to recent flooding by ordering emergency clearance of waterways and proposing a more comprehensive flood management framework.
These are necessary interventions. But the recurrence of serious flooding demonstrates that emergency response cannot substitute for permanent environmental management.
The state needs a system in which rivers and canals are routinely inspected and desilted before the rainy season, drainage channels are kept open throughout the year, illegal structures on waterways are removed and waste disposal is effectively regulated.
The O'YES lesson
The environmental dimension of O'YES deserves special attention. The cadets were not merely unemployed young people receiving stipends. Through cadres such as the Green Gang, Public Sanitation and Public Works Brigade, they provided visible manpower for keeping communities clean, cutting weeds and assisting with environmental maintenance.
Oyetola continued the scheme and, by 2022, announced another recruitment exercise after a period of reduced activity.
Adeleke subsequently replaced O'YES with the Imole Youth Corps. Whatever the political arguments surrounding the different schemes, the environmental lesson is straightforward: Osun needs a permanent community based environmental workforce.
Young people can be trained and deployed to clear vegetation, maintain drainage corridors, monitor blocked waterways, support waste collection and report emerging flood risks.
This should not be treated as a temporary political programme. It should be part of the state's environmental infrastructure.
The verdict
The peer review produces a reasonably clear picture.
Oyinlola: inherited and presided over a period in which recurrent flooding exposed the weakness of the state's preventive drainage system. The insensitive joke attributed to him about Gbonmi residents “meeting the water” became an unfortunate symbol of that era.
Aregbesola: introduced the most comprehensive and visibly preventive environmental intervention of the four administrations — O'Clean, O'YES environmental manpower, waste management, drainage expansion, river dredging and major channelisation. The transformation reported in Gbonmi is the strongest practical evidence of its effectiveness.
Oyetola: continued some of the inherited programmes, including dredging, waste enforcement and O'YES, but failed to sustain the environmental intervention with the same breadth and momentum required to consolidate Aregbesola's gains. The recurring floods showed the cost of insufficient continuity.
Adeleke: has renewed dredging, drainage clearance and environmental enforcement, but the recurrence of serious flooding demonstrates that the state still needs a permanent, integrated flood prevention system rather than periodic emergency interventions.
What Osun should do now
The immediate priority should be prevention. Government should urgently deploy the appropriate heavy equipment, including swamp bulldozers, excavators and dredging equipment where technically necessary, to clear blocked rivers, canals and drainage channels throughout Osun and adjoining affected communities.
But equipment alone is not enough.
Osun needs:
- routine pre rainy season dredging and desilting;
- continuous clearing of drainage channels;
- strict enforcement against dumping refuse into waterways;
- removal of structures obstructing natural waterways;
- restoration and protection of flood plains;
- properly funded waste collection;
- a permanent community environmental workforce;
- flood risk mapping and early warning systems; and
- transparent annual environmental performance reports.
The Gbonmi experience has already demonstrated what preventive investment can accomplish. The lesson should not be forgotten.
When government clears the waterways before the rain comes, people do not have to spend the rainy season bailing water out of their homes.
Good governance is not simply arriving after disaster with relief materials. It is anticipating danger, preventing avoidable damage, protecting lives and safeguarding the homes, businesses and livelihoods of citizens.
Osun deserves nothing less.
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