Blame it on the oil boom

Akwa, Anambra State-- Houses began to spring up and with more construction came indiscriminate excavation of soil and sand for building and construction purposes.Dugout pits created through soil excavation have become wide and deep gullies from the continued erosion brought about by perennial torrential tropical rains especially in the Southeastern part of the country, thereby constituting a major ecological problem for the communities in the region today.

''Several years ago, this community was more than half a kilometer from the excavation site, but today it is at the backyard and almost half the buildings in the community have been pulled down by the gully erosion or landslides. Some communities have been totally deserted because of gully erosion in this region,'' says Mr. Mike Mboye, an environmental journalist based in Akwa, capital of Anambra State, eastern Nigeria.

Umuchiani village, one of the villages that make up Ikwulobia community (a group of villages comprising same clan or ancestral linkages) was affected by serious landslide in December. The inhabitants of the village were woken up suddenly at night on that fateful day by some noise only to find some houses at the edge of the village giving way to landslide. They deserted their homes and took refuge in the nearby forest and villages.

By the time they returned to their village the following morning, several houses, a church and some of their roads were washed away. Their farmlands and economic tree crops like oil palm trees and cashew were not spared either. But luckily, nobody died in the incident. Today, Umuchiani is almost a deserted village as most of the residents have taken up residence in new settlements away from their ancestral homes and shrines. Over 250 families made up of over 1,500 persons were displaced

Ecologists report that there are more than 1000 erosion sites in eastern Nigeria with Anambra State being the worst hit with more than 700 sites because of the topography and the nature of soil (alluvial soil).

''There are more than 700 erosion sites in Anambra state alone. The worst hit sites include Manka, Ikwulobia, Nnewi, Agulu and Ideani (villages). All the gullies are man-made. People excavate soil and with time, the sites become channels for ran-off rain waters which dig the channels deeper and wider. Some of the gullies have been there for more than 50 years and new ones are springing up daily,'' says Professor Boniface Egboka, a Professor of Hydrogeology and Dean, School of Post Graduate Studies, Anambra State University, Awka.

Egboka said: ''The gully erosion situation here in Anambra State is horrible. It is better seen than imagined. The whole place is giving way to gully erosion. The people are suffering. Even before the rainy season which starts in March, the people are afraid of what could befall them when the rain starts''. (Nigeria has two seasons, the rainy season, April to October and dry season, November to March).

The governments of the affected states have taken various measures to tackle the gully erosion problems including yearly workshops to sensitise residents on the need to protect their environment, construction of embankments around some communities and sand-filling of some pits, but the measures have not had the desired impact because while government is tackling major gullies, other smaller ones emerge. Excavation continues in new sites daily.

Though corruption like in all other facets of Nigeria's project is also affecting implementation of erosion projects in the region, Prof. Egboka does not believe in blaming anybody for the continued problem of erosion in the state but wants all to be involved in finding a lasting solution.

''Everybody must be involved. The federal government, the state government, the local government, individuals, non governmental organisations, the politicians and the international community must all help. If money is voted to check erosion, it should be totally used for that purpose and not stolen. Ecological funds have been stolen before and this cannot help us. That is why I support the anti-corruption crusade of the President. Anyone found to have stolen funds meant to save our people from disaster, should face the music,'' he said.

The federal government has already set up some committees and agencies to address the problems of erosion using existing legislation as legal backup for the discharge of their mandate. These include the National Committee on Ecological Problems, the National Conservation Council and the National Advisory Council on Renewable National Resources. A full ministry of environment has also been set up by the government and has been replicated by some state governments to tackle the problems of erosion, but it seems little has been achieved because of the enormous nature of the problem.

But the setting up of more agencies may not the solution to the environmental problems in the Southeast but less corruption and ensuring that money voted for the control of the menace is totally committed to the projects. Pumping of more money into control programmes and legislation against uncontrolled excavation are areas that could make control efforts very effective.

Furious about the activities of sand diggers (excavators) which have been on for several decades and which have aided erosion and gully formation, the minister called for a new legislation that would prescribe harsh punishment for indiscriminate soil excavation especially in the southeastern part of the country ''as a panacea to the citizens' indiscriminate building habits''. Before now, there was no specific law against excavation but excavators pay to landowners some unspecified sum for removing soil from the land.

''We do not have to kill our green belt and desecrate our ecosystem in the name of building as there is the need to protect our children's future. There is need to re-orientate our people,'' she said.

The Anambra State Commissioner for Environment, Forestry and Mineral Resources, Mr. Okey Enemuo said the state government is fighting the menace with all available resources but has to call on the federal government to take care of larger erosion sites, the control of which are beyond the resources of the state government.

On its own, the state government has been able to check few of the over 700 active erosion sites in the area. ''Any erosion site that does not cost more than 100 million naira (about $700,000) to contain, has been taken care of or is being taken care of by the state government, but anything above that is beyond our power financially, that is left to the federal government,'' Enemuo said. The state government needs more than 60 billion naira (more than $400 million) as take-off money to control erosion in the state, according to Egboka who did a survey on the erosion problem in the state.

Saddened by what it described as the obscurity of the ecological problems of the region, a group, ''Aguata-Orumba Union'' made up of sons and daughters of Aguata and Orumba local government areas but based in the United States of America, last December visited the site and donated materials to the affected persons as part of their programme to bring the problem in Anambra state in particular and eastern Nigeria in general to international limelight. (Town unions are non-governmental groups either of the same age group or ethnic group who meet regularly and decide on ways to develop their area through self-imposed levies and contributions).

''We decided to visit the site and donate to the affected persons to let the world know the problems the people of the region are going through in the hands of gully erosion, so that world attention could be paid to the region as much as is being paid to other ecological disaster zones of the world,'' said Mr. Raphael Obijiofor, leader of the group.

''We want the international community to know that there are serious disasters in this area just as there are Katrina and the rest in other parts of the world. We want the world to pay similar attention to this area as they are paying to the other disasters around the world. Erosion problem in eastern Nigeria is beyond the control of both the state and federal governments and we want the international community to come to our aid,'' he told journalists in Awka after the assessment tour of the area in December.