Community seeks release of ecological fund
A two-storey building belonging to an indigene, who lives outside the country and a four-bedroom bungalow located at Amaewu Umueze Amamba Uzuakoli community in Bende Local Council of Abia State ,were at the weekend swept away by gully erosion.
The Guardian learnt that the erosion has defied the community’s effort to control it after spending millions of naira. The member representing Bende South constituency in Abia State House of Assembly, Hon. Emmanuel Chinedu Ndubuisi, during a visit to the site, yesterday, lamented that the owner of the two-storey building and the community had made sustained, but futile efforts to control the gully erosion without success,
He said when the community reached out to the state’s Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project (NEWMAP ) and its team visited and gave expert advice, it was implemented, but the gully erosion still persisted.
According to the lawmaker who is an indigene, more buildings in the community are still under the threat, adding that the community has commenced fresh palliative works as further prescribed by NEWMAP team to mitigate the flood impact.
He said: “NEWMAP team advised that the community should do a drainage down to the river, so that more buildings will not be threatened, but doing so is now beyond the available financial capacity of the community.
“What we want to do now is to use sandbags to slow down the speed of the flood so that the devastation will be reduced, as told by the NEWMAP engineers.
“Both the Federal Lawmaker for Bende and the senator representing Abia North, Benjamin Kalu and Orji Uzor Kalu, respectively, are aware of the disaster.
“The Abia State government’s intervention was only through the NEWMAP. Efforts are ongoing to get other agencies of government to intervene and do the needful.
“The gully erosion menace control as a gigantic project, hence it is ecology-related.
“ The Abia State government and our federal lawmakers should approach and urge the Federal government to use the Ecological Fund to check the gully erosion site.”
