[b]Erosion: Abia communities at the brink of extinction
By ROLAND OGBONNAYA, 12.06.2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009

During the retreat by the Senate in Enugu, the capital of Enugu State last November, the South-east governors were unanimous in their call on the federal government to declare the eastern zone as an emergency for erosion intervention measures. The governors of the five eastern states  who spoke at the second day of the Senate retreat, specifically proposed massive forestation projects in the zone to provide for sustainable land as well as comprehensive water channelisation master plan to cater for future channelisation.

 
In addition, the governors called for massive infrastructure development of the area, construction of roads, control of floods and assistance for displaced communities. They asked the Senate to ensure that budgetary provisions are made forthwith, especially in the 2010 federal budget, to enable government provide the remedial projects.

For example, in his presentation, Governor Sullivan Chime  of Enugu State, said gully erosion had devastated a good percentage of the population, stressing, "the Southeast is perching precariously on the mercy of gully erosion." He added that "individual governments in the zone have taken many bold steps to prevent it but our dwindling finances could not match the enormous funds needed to fight the menace." He told the Senate-in retreat that no fewer than 317 erosion sites had been identified in Enugu alone for urgent and sustainable intervention.

His Anambra State counterpart, Mr. Peter Obi said the southeast zone had already been declared a disaster zone, but lamented that nothing concrete had so far been done to mitigate the rampaging disaster. He shocked the Senators when he claimed that the federal government had awarded contracts for 16 non-existing erosion sites in the state. Obi explained that "villages are being washed away while lives are being lost due to the menace of erosion. The entire water system in Onitsha, for example, he said has also been washed away leading to scarcity of water in the area."

Governor Ikedi Ohakim of Imo State underscored the imperative of a focused national attention on the erosion problem in the zone, insisting that "the trend must not be allowed to impoverish our people." He said that 460 erosion sites had been identified in the state and the state government had awarded contracts for eleven sites. He said the government had planted one million trees as a temporary measure to address the lingering problem.

Abia State Governor, Mr. Theodore Orji, lamented that lives had been lost in all the local governments in the state on account of the gully erosion menace. Orji, who was represented by the Deputy Governor, Chief Chris Akomas, said, "the Senate should do something very fast to save the state from the impending disaster which will attract global attention when it happens."

His Ebonyi State counterpart, Mr. Martin Elechi, did not attend the session neither did he send a representation, but one of the syndicate groups led by the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, visited the state to assess agriculture facilities there. Other syndicate groups visited the Aba Independent Power Plant (IPP) and other industrial projects; erosion sites in Imo State and Nnewi auto-industrial projects and erosion sites in Anambra State.

Senate President, David Mark led the group to Aba, Abia State while the Senate Leader, Teslim Folarin and Senate Chief Whip, Kanti Bello  led the groups to Imo and Anambra States respectively. While the effort made by the Senators to visit some of the erosion sites is commendable, some experts and analysts believe that the magnitude of the danger caused by erosion as seen by the law makers will spur them to make sure that government tackle the problem of erosion in the eastern part of the country urgently.

For several decades since after the civil war, the people of the South East have been shouting to whoever cared to listen that the area was gradually being eaten up by erosion. Several representations had been made to successive administrations at the centre for their decisive intervention but  little or nothing has been done.

Till date, the only federal administration that made some efforts to address the problem was the Alhaji Shehu Shagari (1979-1983). Shagari, according to THISDAY investigation visited the major erosion sites in Imo and Anambra States. Some of the sites he visited included Amucha in Imo and Nanka in Anambra. Touched by the magnitude of the havoc to human lives and settlements in those areas, Shagari wept profusely. He resolved to bring in the federal might to mitigate the problem. He awarded contracts to address the problems.

When Shagari left office, the criminal neglect of the erosion problems by succeeding administrations became monumental environmental disaster which presently stares the entire geographical landscape of the five South Eastern States in the face without any exceptions. It is against this backdrop, some experts appreciate the concern expressed by the Senate to give the erosion threats in the South East the national attention it deserves.

In Anambra, the active erosion sites are more than a thousand. The Nanka-Oko-Ekwulobia sites can melt the most hardened of hearts. In this axis alone, many lives have been lost and several homes including ancestral places of worship swept away by frightening and rampaging erosion. In Abia, virtually every community is affected. The worst affected areas include Umuezeukwu and other surrounding villages like Umuodeche, Umuogu, Ikputu and Agburuike in Isiala Ngwa North Local Government Area. Others are Umuahia, Ikwuano, Ohafia, Isuikwuato, Abiriba, Igbere, Nkporo and parts of Arochuku. It is the same story in these places and others.

Though the Senators did not get to see the erosion sites in Umuezeukwu and other neighbouring communities, which would have been a miracle because the communities have since Nigeria’s independence been forgotten without any government presence there or paid host to any government official—be it local, state or federal in their history.

Umuezeukwu is a small community sandwiched between Nbawsi and Ikputu near the old Umuahia/Aba road. For the community whose people are mainly peasant farmers, they cannot transport their agricultural produce to Umuahia main market or Ntigha Market for sale because the only road in the area has been bifurcated by rampaging erosion. It’s more pathetic now because the erosion has started to eat up houses and farmlands. For some families like Pastor Chimankpam Benson and Ebere Okamgba, the only road leading to their houses has been long cut off by the erosion, while other families are being seriously threatened.

Early this year, the community alerted the local and state governments on the danger of the erosion when they protested governments’ neglect of their plight. The protest which was aired on the state television—ABC television, the Umuezeukwu community called on the federal and state governments to come to their rescue before they are eaten up by the erosion. The community regretted its neglect by subsequent governments in Abia State, especially the Theodore .A Orji Administration.

According to one of the community elders, Ezeji Emmanuel Nwaogwugwu, Umuezeukwu has not benefited in any way from any government right from the then Imo to present Abia State. “At times I begin to wonder whether this community is in the state and Nigerian map. The pipe borne water we had in the past, which is moribund now was through community effort. Even the electricity we have now is through the same community effort, except the local government chairman, who made sure a transformer was provided. The only dilapidating primary school structure in the community was also built by the community, so what can we actually point at and say government at any level did for us.

“If the fight against erosion is what the community can shoulder by itself, we would have done it long time ago. It’s because we cannot shoulder it because of the financial outlay that we are calling on the federal government through its appropriate agencies and ministry to come to our aid. We want Governor Orji to visit this community and see the devastation for himself so that he will appreciate our predicament and also make our case known when he is also presenting others case. We deserve it because we are part of this state. This is our position,” Nwaogwugwu said.

A woman leader in the community, Mrs. Mercy Orji regretted that women now carry their agricultural produce on the head to neighbouring communities before they can get any means of transportation to the market in the city—Umuahia—because of no road as available ones have been eaten up by erosion. As a result, she said there is a limit to which one person can carry on the head, which results to farm produce being damaged at home before they get to the market. Because one cannot sell and make enough money to sustain their lives,  she said, the circle of poverty continues to ravage the people.

“We can't take our goods to the city because no vehicles can come to Umuezeukwu as there is no road,” a former community councilor, Blessing Ibeneme told THISDAY recently. "The roads have been destroyed by erosion. And we cannot carry the farm produce on our heads to the town, located some 20 kilometres." Bicycles and motorbikes have to be pushed across areas that have been cut off by erosion, he said.

In all, about 500 erosion sites have been identified in Abia State. Other communities affected by flood, landslide and gully erosion include Ozoabam, Ikwuano and Osuagon. A state with a population of 2.3 million, Abia State is one of the smallest in Nigeria’s 36 states. In Abia State, more than 10 villages - with a combined population of more than 20,000 - have been cut off from the rest of the state by gully erosion since 1998. Floods have also destroyed the house of Emma Nwaka, a Senator from 1979 to 1983. The landslide, which caused a deep gully, severed the only major road in the area.

In neighbouring Imo State erosion has also been devasitating. There are serious flooding and a lot of newly created gullies emerging especially during the peak period of rains between July and September in Ekwusigo local government in Imo State. A study commissioned by the local government on the impact of the ecological disaster and how to control it some few years ago, showed that about 1.030 billion Naira (about 10 million US dollars) was needed to control the disaster.

Imo State is said to have more than 34 gully-erosion sites, a menace, which the authorities say was too much for the local government to handle alone. Fighting environmental degradation in Anambra State, alone will cost over 200 billion Naira (about two billion dollars), according to a study by Michak Umenweke, a geologist at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University.

Stanley Ojigbo, who was once in-charge of Environment and Solid Minerals Development in Abia, said in one of the reports that the state government has embarked on tree planting exercise. As well as educating the people. He agreed that erosion control is capital intensive and considering the lean financial resources at its disposal, the state government cannot carry it alone. Erosion problem, some states, if not all need special attention.

It will be recalled that during a state visit to Abia, former president Olusegun Obasanjo expressed worries at the level of ecological disaster in the region. Since after the visit, more serious efforts were put in place by the local and state governments in the affected eastern states to control the ecological degradation there.

Environmental degradation in Nigeria's southeast has led to floods devastating several villages. In some villages, graveyards and ancestral shrines have been washed off. Bones of the dead, long laid to rest, are no longer resting in peace at graveyards as they lay exhumed, swept to the surface of the earth by devastating perennial erosion, which ravages parts of the region. The narrow unpaved roads, linking most communities in the hinterland to the cities, have been swept off in several locations making it impossible for villagers to transport farm produce to the cities.

The control of these erosion sites is beyond the individual communities, governments in the South East. It will require huge financial resource outlay to put the menace in total check. And it is only the federal government that has the financial muscle to address the problem on a permanent basis. Any intervention on an ad-hoc basis cannot endure. What is required is a marshal plan to tackle the problem frontally and holistically. To implement the plan, federal government must seriously consider the setting up of a South East Erosion Control Commission (SEECC), which many experts have suggested, with direct funding from the federation account. Umuezeukwu and other neighbouring communities said they are shouting for attention so that they would  not be forgotten in the scheme of things if such a commission is considered.

Now, some environmental experts say now the Senators have gone to the East and seen for themselves the devastations that erosions have wrought on the various communities in the zone, they are, apparently in a better position to give these proposed measures the desired push. They say the ball is now in the court of the lawmakers from the South East to pick up this challenge because there is no doubt that they will get good support from their colleagues from other geo-political zones who now appreciate that the danger of gully and sheet erosion is real.

And like the communities and Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu stated at the Enugu retreat, "if nothing urgent was done to address the development, the zone (South East) might be highly vulnerable to higher environmental degradation". In as much as the Senate deserves commendation for taking the retreat to East, and going beyond holding their deliberations there and moving to the affected erosion sites to see things for themselves, observers say it’s the way it should be.

By this action, the Senators have proven to be an activist lawmakers. “It is not just enough to sit in Abuja and pretend to be legislating for the good governance of the federation without being acquainted with the problems of the people that elected you into power. There is wisdom in going beyond oversight duties in the ministries and parastatals and engaging the electorates in their natural habitat and knowing their problems,” an analyst, Emeka Nwosu said recently. “It is only through such initiatives that our lawmakers will be in a better position to make laws that have direct and positive bearing to the lives of the people they represent.”[/b]

http://nigeriaworld.com/cgi-bin/axs/ax.pl?http://odili.net/news/source/2009/dec/8/201.html

good erosion planning is important for every state in Nigeria.

Here are some steps to good erosion planning in Nigeria. http://www.projectandresearchwork.com/control-of-erosion-in-eastern-nigeria/

Following

Erosion republic of Biafra.

Fg no go answer una since its not lagos ibadan express road.