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Magnus Eze, Enugu and Aloysius Attah, Onitsha
“But for the few interventions, if it rains, vehicles are swept off while houses are either partly swallowed or balkanized; due to the effects of erosion. We live in apprehension because we don’t know what may happen to our houses any moment. Government should declare an emergency situation over the devastating effects of this erosion in our community.”
This statement by Omezie Nwachukwu, a native of Obosi community, Anambra State, said. The erosion problem has spanned over three decades in the area, wreaking havoc of unimaginable proportions.
A current relief map reveals the slow ecological disaster snaking its way insidiously throughout the region.
An expert who would not want to be named described the ecological threat to the South-east as grave.
Our correspondent who visited some erosion ravaged communities in Anambra said several parts of Obosi community were about to go under unless serious intervention was carried out.
He identified serious erosion sites at Ire Amaejiofor, Ire Odoaraba, Odoaraba, Urowulu and Ugamuma among others. Presently, the Obosi community secondary school is at the verge of caving in owing to devastating erosion.
Palace secretary to the Obosi royal cabinet, Ugonabo Shedrack Okenwa said the state government through the World Bank Assisted Nigeria Erosion Watershed Management Project (NEWMAP) is intervening in the Ugamuma section while other areas ravaged by gully erosion were being attended to through community effort.
At Ire Amaejiofor erosion site visited by the reporter, houses, cash crops and traditional relics have been swallowed by erosion. Though there were visible interventions done in the site by a construction company which created deep gutters and drainage channels for passage of flood, villagers in the area said they live in constant fear because the entire landscape in the area has been affected by the menace.
President General of Obosi Development Union, Steve Ikechukwu Okolo, an engineer, blamed aggravated erosion issue in Obosi on the several mistakes by various construction companies that had handled road projects in the Onitsha axis over the years.
He claimed that wrong channelling of flood is a serious predisposing factor and said though he was newly elected into office, that the ecological challenge facing the community would form core part of the projects of his leadership.
Enugu state is not left out. The Enugu office of NEWMAP, recently raised the alarm that ravaging erosion may in the near fear future lead to the total collapse of several roads in the state.
NEWMAP Project Coordinator in the state, Vincent Obetta disclosed that over N12 billion was needed to tackle erosion threat in the state.
Obetta declared after a recent tour of some gully erosion sites along Enugu-Onitsha expressway and Coal Camp; that “erosion is closing in on our roads and the hinterlands.
“The sites along Enugu-Onitsha road are in a state of emergency and the one at the Coal Camp is almost swallowing a factory. The Ugwu-Onyeama road is almost gone; imagine when that road is cut-off at that half, then, the motorist will be struggling on the part that is also in a deplorable condition.”
He lamented that NEWMAP could not do much because of the rigorous process required before the agency’s intervention.
“If we go by the procedural method of NEWMAP; those situation we saw might either consume life or structures before the interventions could come to the people,” he said.
The eighth House of Representatives had in March 2017 called on the Federal Government to address the erosion threatening lives and property in the Idemili area of Anambra state and across the nation.
The House urged government to direct the Ecological Fund Office to carry out Environmental Impact Assessment of erosion and flooding disasters in the area. It also called on the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to come to the aid of the affected communities and victims displaced by erosion and flooding.
The decision followed a motion by the then member representing the area, Obinna Chidoka who said that communities in Idemili North/South of Anambra state and neighbouring areas, over the years suffered hardship from gully erosion and perennial flooding.
The challenges, he said, had displaced hundreds of families, made hectares of farmland useless and uprooted trees of economic value. The other communities, he said, included Obosi, Nkpor, Ogidi, Abatete, Alor, Ideani, Nnobi, Ojoto and Oba.
Ecological reports from many parts of South East are tales of woes because of devastating erosion in the five states of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo that make up the zone.
Apart from abandoned and neglected federal roads seen everywhere in the zone, soil erosion has become the greatest threat in the zone to the extent that the Federal Government declared it a disaster area deserving urgent intervention by any means possible.
Just in Nnewi alone there are about five devastating erosion sites including the one at 100 Foot Road. Recently, over ten communities including Isuikwuato, Ovim, Akara, Alayi, Igbere, Item, Abariba, Ohafia, Arochukwu in Abia State were cut off from Okigwe by the Abia State University, Uturu as erosion divided the federal road there into two.
The issue came to the front burner again last Thursday prompting the upper legislative chamber’s resolve to send a delegation from the Ecological Fund Office and NEMA down to Anambra South, Anambra Central and Anambra North Senatorial Districts to visit areas struck by the erosion and other natural disasters.
The resolution was sequel to the motion sponsored by Senators Uche Ekwunife (Anambra Central) and Ifeanyi Ubah (Anambra South).
The motion, which was aimed at drawing the attention of the Senate to the devastating storms in Obosi, Nkpor and Oraukwu communities received additional prayer that sought for NEMA and the Ecological Fund Office’s intervention on the deadly erosion threatening Nnewi and other communities from Senator Ubah.
While commending Ekwunife for presenting the motion, Ubah reminded the Senate about the threatened automobile market in Nnewi which he had mentioned a week earlier.
The biggest motorcycle and auto parts market in West Africa popularly known as Nkwo Nnewi market situated along 100 Foot Road Nnewi, in a neighboring senatorial zone next to that of Ekwunife in Anambra State is currently threatened by a deadly erosion, thereby forcing traders to offload their containers far away from their warehouses and shops, and leaving them with no option than to use wheelbarrows to convey their goods to the market as a result of the erosion-stricken road, Uba said
He further requested that a delegation from the Ecological Fund Office and NEMA be sent down to Anambra South to have a first-hand view and assessment of erosion sites at 100 Foot Road Nnewi, Ekwulobia-Oko-Umunze- Ibinta Road, Agulu-Nanka, Nnamdi Azikiwe University (Awka and Nnewi campuses) as well that of Umueze in Uga-Aguata so that they can witness the deplorable state of infrastructure and untold suffering men and women go through as a result of the pervasive erosion menace.
