Kwara community worried about influx of snakes

Residents of Igbo-emun, Moro local government area of Kwara State have expressed worries over recent upsurge of snakes found around the town. This is coming on the heels of several residents receiving treatments at the hospital from snakebites.

A boa constrictor was on Monday night killed at Igbo-emun by a corps member, Gbenga Alilonu, the third that was killed between last weekend and Monday night. Alilonu, who found the large snake said he was able to capture the animal because of his knowledge of environmental science.

Also yesterday, another big snake was killed during the clearance of Mount Carmel A & B LGEA primary school, Oloje in Ilorin West local government area of Kwara. The snake was killed by the state special task force on environmental team who were evacuating refuse in the school surroundings.

Mr. Razaq Jiddah, who led the task force advised residents to take cleanliness seriously not only because of the fear of snakes but also to prevent the outbreak of Lassa Fever in the state.

It would be recalled that at Sango area of Ilorin, the state capital last year, a mysterious snake bit a 49- year-old schoolteacher and mother of three, Mrs. Mary Olubunmi Omoloye, to death. Mrs. Omoloye, a.k.a ‘Iya Success,’ was killed by the venom of a snake that attacked her in her apartment’s toilet. She saw the snake unaware it had bitten her. It was minutes later she started feeling strange pains.

She was rushed to a nearby hospital where a doctor discovered the deceased had been bitten by the snake, but unfortunately, the hospital did not have anti-snake venom injection to save Omoloye’s life.

An official at the Kwara State Environmental Protection Agency (KWEPA), who spoke under the condition of anonymity, said the development could not be divorced from unkempt and bushy environments across the state.