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From Stanley Uzoaru, Owerri Enugu
It was once the pride of Ikeduru. A short, busy road that linked farmers to market, children to school and the sick to the health centre. Today, Okwu Ikeduru in Amakohia-Ikeduru is a tale of a deep, angry scar.
The gully is now more than 30 feet deep in some places. What used to be a tarred community road has been sliced into two. Red muddy water gushes with force whenever it rains, pulling houses, economic trees and farmlands into its belly. Vehicles no longer pass. Motorcycles no longer dare. Residents now trek miles through bush paths to get home.
“It has become impassable,” says Pa Josephat Nwaokoro, 78, whose family house sits dangerously close to the edge. “If it rains for two hours, we cannot sleep. We are watching our ancestral homes go down.”
The pain of Okwu Ikeduru is worsened by what is happening a few kilometres away on the Ugiri-Obohia road. For years, indiscriminate sand excavation by tipper operators has left the area pockmarked with deep pits. With no reclamation, runoff water found a new channel. That channel has now become a monster gully, eating up the road and adjoining compounds. Drivers who used the road as an alternative route to Mbaitoli and Owerri now avoid it completely. A journey of 15 minutes now takes over an hour.
“This is a man-made disaster,” a youth leader in Ugiri said. “They excavate sand, collect money and leave us with erosion. Government must stop them.”
Tired of waiting for government intervention that never came, residents of Okwu Ikeduru have resorted to self-help. Under the motivation of their president-general, the community mobilises men, women and youths every Saturday for communal labour. With shovels, wheelbarrows, cement and stones donated by sons and daughters at home and abroad, they are trying to do what bulldozers should do. They refill, sandbag, plant bamboo trees, and dig temporary water channels to divert the flood.
“We contributed money. Some brought 10 bags of cement, some brought sandbags. The PG said we cannot fold our hands and watch our community disappear,” said Mrs. Blessing Amadi, a trader.
The PG, who declined to have his name mentioned in print, said: “We have written to the LGA, to the state government, to NDDC, to the Ecological Fund Office. We are yet to get a response. But we cannot wait to become IDPs in our own land. This is our little effort to show we are serious.”
Experts said gully erosion remains the biggest ecological threat in Imo and the entire South East, driven by fragile soils, poor drainage and human activities.
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What is happening in Okwu Ikeduru is beyond community effort. It needs urgent intervention, proper channelling, concrete embankment, control of sand-mining activities along Ugiri-Obohia and enforcement of environmental laws.
For now, the people watch the rains with fear. Each downpour widens the gully and pushes Okwu Ikeduru closer to being cut off from civilisation.
They have done what they can with shovels. They now need the government to come with machines. But the agony of Ikeduru does not end at Okwu and Ugiri. Look at the community’s dear Ekeonumiri river. The present state compared to the past is disheartening.
Ekeonumiri River was the pride of the community, mothers washed there, fishermen fed families from it, children swam there during the dry season. Today, the river is crying.
The major link road leading to Owubinubi that crosses the Ekeonumiri axis is in total ruins. The approaches to the river have collapsed. The river channel is blocked by silt, refuse and collapsed embankment. During rains, it overflows and sacks the entire area. During the dry season, it stinks, choked by erosion debris. Accessing Owubinubi cross that road is now a nightmare, a journey that should take 10 minutes now takes an hour of pushing motorcycles through mud.
“How did we get here? What have we done to deserve this?” an elderly woman, Mama Nkechi, from Owubinubi, asked Daily Sun, her voice breaking. That question echoes across Ikeduru.
If Okwu is bleeding, Amakohia-Ikeduru is dying silently. Amakohia is no longer talking about development; the people are now talking about survival. The community’s secondary school, Amakohia Secondary School, is gradually winding up. Classrooms are empty, roofs are leaking and there are no teachers. Parents are withdrawing their children to expensive private schools in Atta and Owerri because the public school has been abandoned.
And the road, that major, historic link that connects Amakohia-Ikeduru to Okpala, has been completely overtaken by weeds. Grass taller than a man have covered the road. No vehicle plies it. Even foot traffic is disappearing. A federal link road that should boost trade between Imo and Abia has become a forest path.
“You cannot believe this was once a major road. Now, snakes own it,” a youth, Chimaobi, said.
The Okwu erosion site needs immediate ecological intervention, not later. Sand excavation on Ugiri-Obohia must be regulated and reclamation enforced, the Ekeonumiri River and the Owubinubi link road need to be dredged and reconstructed with proper drainage. Amakohia-Ikeduru road to Okpala needs to be cleared, graded, and tarred. Amakohia Secondary School needs urgent renovation, staffing, and equipment. Ikeduru people are not asking for too much. They are asking for roads they can be proud of, schools that work, and infrastructure that gives them dignity. Unless and until the state and federal governments, NDDC, and Ecological Fund Office act, the gully will keep expanding.
