By VINCENT UJUMADU, Awka

UGA, the sleepy community in Aguata local government area of Anambra State is in dire need of assistance from both the federal and state government to fight the gully erosion that is devastating the area. At the last count, no fewer that 10 houses had been swallowed by the gully since the beginning of the present rainy season.

Though erosion had become a common feature in many parts of Anambra State, especially in Agulu, Nanka, Oko, Awka, Ozubulu, among others, the one in Uga appears to be hitting the people hardest because it occurs very close to built up villages. As a result, many villages in the community sleep with one eye open as they do not know when the menace would visit their homes.

Recently, the community suffered one of the most devastating gully erosion menace in recent times during which more that 100 people were displaced from their homes and they had to relocate to other safer villages.

Worried by the development, the Senator representing Anambra South senatorial district, Dr. Andy Uba, who hails from the community visited the area during which he bemoaned the fate of his kinsmen whose houses and farmlands are daily washed away by devastating gully erosion.

One of the gully sites in Uga

During the visit, Senator Uba came face to face with many families in the community who were forced to abandon their homes. Uba, who shed tears with his people as they took him round the affected areas, regretted that ecological fund provided for arresting erosion problems had not been properly utilized, adding that the essence of the ecological fund was for quick intervention at any slightest occurrence.

He wondered why the people should be made to become refugees in their community, lamenting that Anambra South senatorial zone had remained the worse hit of gully erosion in the state and urged the state government to put the ecological fund to proper use.

The senator said: “I am particularly not happy with what I have seen so far in Uga town. It is very unfortunate that families in Uga would have to pass through Ideato North local government area of Imo State to see their relations because the road linking them with their kinsmen has been cut off by erosion. Houses have also been abandoned and eventually swallowed by the erosion.

“The level of destruction is terrible and my people now sleep with one eye open. This should not be the case. A lot of economic trees have been destroyed by the gully erosion and if we do not do something fast, it would become more calamitous.

“I am aware of the ecological funds provided by the federal government and if it is put to judicious use, these problems would have been solved to a very large extent. I wish to commend the wisdom of the federal government in declaring my beloved state an ecologically affected area and as part of my oversight functions in the National Assembly I shall see to it that the funds are put to use”.

He appealed to the people to exercise patience as, according to him, some palliative measures would be taken in the interim, while major work on the erosion would commence very soon.

Uba promised to make an official presentation on the matter on the floor of the senate to drive home the plight of Uga people, even as he advised the community leaders to carry out awareness campaign on erosion control measures.

Some of the people whose houses were under serious threats say it was difficult for them to leave a place they had lived all their lives to become refugees. Mrs. Alice Ude, a grand mother whose lives with her grand children wondered how they would adapt to their new location.

Also, Chief Ibe Okoye who had removed the roof and the windows on his house said he did not know what to do with them except that he could not bear a situation where he had to watch his house fall into the gully with some of the things he could retrieve, adding that it was for that reason that he decided to take anything he could afford to remove.