By Emeka Aginam

OKO—The Oko community in Orumba North Local Government Area in Anambra has appealed to both the state government and Federal Government to, as a matter of urgency,, construct and repair access roads in the town.

Oko is the country home of the former Vice President in the second Republic, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, who has contributed his part in the socio-economic and political development of Nigeria.

The call was made at the weekend in Oko by the chairman of Ezioko village, Oko, Men’s meeting in Lagos, Mr. Chukwuneke Okafor when he visited  the traditional ruler of the community, Prof. Laz Ekwueme, Igwe Ijikara.

He said erosion menace is causing more harm than good in the community and blamed government’s neglect as the major cause of the bad roads.

Okafor said the bad roads were affecting movement of goods and persons from the villages to the hinterlands.

He lamented that the deplorable state of the roads was affecting also movement of the Polytechnic students living in different parts of the villages and informed that the students and the people from the community had to walk for long distances to get to the markets, schools, and churches, among others.

He said: “ Save our community. Roads leading to Ezioko villages are bad. Roads leading to the five villages in the community are bad. Roads leading to Ezioko, Eziabor, Okeani, Ifite and Okeani village are bad.”

It is worst this rainy season. We need government help. We need government urgent intervention. Time is already running as the erosion menace is causing more harm than good in Oko that has produced many functional graduates in Nigeria and Diaspora  working in banks, oil companies and many multinationals as a result of the Federal Polytechnic located in the town”, he said.

Commercial motorcycle riders popularly known as Okada and commercial vehicles in the area, according to him now charge high fares as a result of the bad states of the roads.

He said that government has abandoned Oko community while fixing roads in the neighboring towns like Nanka, Ekwuruobia, Ogbu, Agulu, among others.
It would be recalled that Okafor had recently renewed appeal to both the State and the Federal Government for more proactive measures to control Oko-Nanka  erosion smenace   in the State.

Although the Anambra State Government has been in the vanguard to fight the erosion menace in the state by working in conjunction with the World Bank Project called NEWMAP, Okafor noted that Oko-Nanka-Ekwulobia erosion menace should be given priority attention. Despite the work being done, Okafor said that the government needed to allocate more resources to Anambra in order to contain the greatest number of erosion sites, especially, Oko/Nanka erosion menace.