The Governor of Anambra State, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, has described his state as the erosion capital of Nigeria.
Why is this so: Soludo justified his position with the declaration that erosion and other ecological menace are wearing away 30 to 40 per cent of the state’s landmass.
The former Central Bank Governor disclosed this to State House Correspondents after meeting with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Wednesday, September 21, 2022.
Soludo working on solutions: Soludo, who revealed that his administration is introducing better environmental awareness among the people to curtail the challenge, said only an urgent intervention from the Federal Government and other development partners can salvage the situation.
Soludo’s word: “The environment is our number one existential threat, other than security, and Anambra is the erosion capital of Nigeria.
“Perhaps, you might know that about 30% to 40% of our land is under threat of erosion, there’s no other state like Anambra when it comes to erosion. Even last week somewhere between Ezinifite/Osumenyi Road was cut off again and several huge gullies everywhere; Obosi, Oko, Nanka, Aguolu, everywhere, there’s erosion menace.
“As I said, while our landmass is shrinking massively due to erosion and so on, it’s far beyond the capacity of a state government to deal with. Even if you were to sink the entire budget of the state for the next ten years into dealing with the gully erosion in the state, it will still be like a drop in the ocean.
“It is a state of emergency, with regards to erosion. And of course, we’re also promoting this concept of responsible citizenship on the part of our people, to be able to take some responsible steps.
“We are providing some regulations; people controlling the runoff water from their homes, they don’t just pipe them and get them off on the streets. Of course, they must go somewhere, contain it within your place. Building controls; will designate drain versus buildable areas, and so on and so forth.
“Then, of course, trying to tackle these things with early warning signals, and we’ll begin to tackle them. Clean up our drainages and make sure we channel runoff waters down to rivers and so on and so forth and not let them percolate on the road or try to go to unwanted places and so on and so forth.”
