•A deep gully at Bende Photos: Kunle Ajayi
Experts have rightly called for urgent steps to be taken in the fight against climate change to save mother-earth. The effects of climate change have been felt all parts of the world in varying degrees. Many attribute the change to activities of man that have impacted so negatively on the ecosystem. In some parts of the world for instance, inhabitants have been plagued with various natural calamities such as tsunami, hurricane among others. Nigeria and particularly the Eastern part, is contending with erosion which has become life-threatening.
The recent visit to Amakama, Amieke, Isieke, Bende, Isuikwuato communities in Abia and Ikeduru Local Government area of Imo State indicated that a lot of work needed to be carried out to arrest the devastating impacts of erosion. Roads were in deplorable state, houses caving in, vehicles crashing into erosion-made-valleys and the cash crops that were supposed to serve as source of income to the residents being submerged as a result of persisting erosion.
To a first time visitor to the area, the Sam Mbakwe International Airport, in Owerri actually paints a false impression of what is obtainable in the zone. The clustered green vegetation made up of palm trees and other top trees offers a near perfect look of nature and can easily make one say all is well.
However, the entire Bende community in Abia State has almost been cut off into two; the major road is nearly cut off. According to residents, they have done all they could to check the erosion but to no avail and have consequently resorted to God to touch somebody’s heart in the government to come to their aid.
They confided in our correspondent how various vehicles had fallen into craters occasioned by the erosion and how they had erected sand-filled bags to demarcate the road so that innocent motorists would no longer fall victim.
It was observed that, apart from the damaged road, houses have been submerged and others may cave in anytime except urgent steps are taken before the raining season commences.
When would the government come and fix the road was the rhetoric question they kept asking. “When I saw camera and some of you entering into the gully, I thought relief had come, thinking that government officials had come to see and find solution to our plight. I never knew you guys were journalists but as it is, please help us call on them to come and save us before erosion consumes the whole community,” Emma Chidi, one of the residents pleaded.
Between Uturu, a town that hosts the Abia State University and Alata, there are more than five serious gullies, making transportation more tedious, thus forcing motorists to take alternative routes to get to their destinations. For instance, it will ordinarily be shorter and easier to travel from Umuhia straight to Uturu but because of bad road worsened by erosion, the journey is prolonged through Enugu Expressway via Okigwe.
In Isuikwuato Local Government Area, about one kilometre stretch of land had been lost to erosion and has been neglected for over a decade. According to residents, the on-going sand filling, which is expected to involve more hectares of land to fill up the exposed portions of the road would further open up the area and may lead to loss of more trees and cash crops.
A young woman, Joy Mathew, lamented that greater part of her family farm land has been claimed by the reconstruction project. Matthew , who was seen breastfeeding her baby at one of the erosion sites, where she had gone to fetch firewood stated; “These cashew trees that ought to be our source of income have become firewood, what then does the future hold for the next generation.”
Beyond road, businesses are no longer thriving as in the past. Petrol stations have folded up, it was learnt, while school buildings have also been abandoned because of threat of erosion. The ugly trend is equally affecting power supply in the area. Electric poles and cables were seen lying on the floor without any hope of being attended to.
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