GULLY erosion in South Eastern Nigeria has continued to pose a challenge to geoscientists and other environmental scientists, as the Anambra State Commissioner for Environment Beautification and Ecology, Dr Romanus Ejikeme, said he has submitted a list of 62 erosion sites that will cost the Anambra State government more than N17 billion to the Federal authorities.
He went ahead to state that the 62 sites were ‘the critical ones’. Other non-critical ones include “550 very active erosion sites and 1, 000 erosion sites”. The commissioner said, “Last year, we did not receive any grant for ecological problem, what we did was that we used our internally generated revenue and part of the federation account to solve the problems.”
The problem of erosion has become a menace in Anambra State and the entire South East region, but it can be controlled and managed to the extent that erosion sites will no longer force people to abandon their homes and farm lands. Worthy of mention here for all who are genuinely concerned with the menace of erosion in the South Eastern Nigeria is that the threat posed by the ‘non-critical’ 550 very active and 1,000 erosion sites identified by the commissioner, far exceeds the present 62 critical sites that attention is being focused on. In the next 15 to 20 years, these so called ‘non-critical’ sites will have ravaged human settlements and agricultural lands, thereby seriously hampering economic and social aspects of human existence in South Eastern Nigeria.
The erosion threat in South Eastern Nigeria is real and not a fiction. According to the commissioner, “I’ve been to at least 10 erosion sites throughout the region (including the Nanka, Amaokala, Aguly Nnobi, Njaba areas) in the course of carrying out a scientific research on the relationship between Nanaka sandstone and erosion in Anambra basin and I never, for once, felt such forces. Maybe because I was searching for solutions and not seeking cheap political relevance in the midst of negligence from town unions, local and state governments.
“The question is, why have we failed to effectively control this erosion menace that had been observed since the early 40s? Why have successive governments, at all levels, failed to give the issue the attention it deserves?
I think it all has to do with the same old endemic disease the whole country has been caught up with. The sickness of waiting until infrastructures dilapidate beyond manageable levels before we then start seeking intervention, quoting huge contract sums and playing the blame game. The same old vicious circle has been played out over and over again in South Eastern Nigeria – waiting for grants from the ecological fund of the federal government”.
The commissioner is eagerly awaiting the passage of a bill that would see the emergence of a new agency to manage ecological funds by the National Assembly. He is hoping that the agency would now come out with criteria that would determine which state gets ecological fund.
Meanwhile, the problem of soil erosion in South Eastern Nigeria is one that can easily be managed by concerted effort involving the town unions, corporate organisations (through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)), the academia, local and state governments, as a way of looking beyond the present rhetoric and failed policies on erosion menace in South Eastern Nigeria, and focusing on practical measure for effective control,
and then