RAYMOND OZOJI reports
Abandoned road project at Ananso village Mbaukwu near Umuawulu in Awka-South Local Government Area of Anambra State is currently raising unimaginable erosion devastations in the area as houses, farmlands and economic trees might be completely submerged, if there is no urgent redemptive plan by government to address the impending catastrophe.
A viral video circulating online showed where community dwellers trooped out en masse to appeal to Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo to please rescue the community from extinction because the erosion menace resulting from the abandoned road project has cut the community off from her neighbours.
Mbaukwu is the country home of the Anambra State Deputy Governor, Dr. Onyekachukwu Ibezim. It is also the community where Nnamdi Azikiwe University Pre-science Programme is located and the NYSC orientation camp. In spite the aforementioned, community dwellers bemoaned abandonment as they claimed politicians only make promises to them without fulfilling any while they languished in agony and frustrations.
A concerned Mbaukwu indigene of Ogba village, who identified himself as Mr. Chukwujekwu Okeke, told this journalist that the abandoned road connects the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) orientation camp in Mbaukwu community and also leads to Umuawulu, a neighbouring community respectively.
Okeke further disclosed that the said abandoned road project was awarded during the Willie Obiano administration and ever since no politician from the area has made efforts to get the state government to recommence work on the ill-fated road project instead the politicians all vanished after their electioneering campaigns.
The concerned Mbaukwu indigene said they had appealed to the Deputy Governor for remedial actions on the road but the Deputy Governor kept telling them to be patient until they returned for second term thereby causing the situation to be more catastrophic and disastrous.
He alleged that Mbaukwu community hasn't got anything meaningful from government in spite of having a Deputy Governor from the community.
He was of the opinion that government should intervene urgently because people were already falling into rivers due to lack of bridges while houses would be destroyed as the erosion escalated.
Corroborating the foregoing, President-General of Mbaukwu community, comrade Emmanuel Ikechukwu Afuekwe, said that the abandoned road project has caused very catastrophic erosion menace in the community.
Afuekwe told this journalist that he has written so many letters to the state government through the Anambra State Town Union Council (ASTUC) concerning the road but all to no avail because the situation has remained the same with no remedy in sight.
He said it is purely a state government concern and that the Deputy Governor who hails from the community isn't helping matters even as he added that Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo hasn't gone to see the abandoned road project and to ascertain the magnitude of erosion devastations in the area.
But the Deputy Governor on his part argued that it was arrant falsehood that Mbaukwu community hasn't benefitted from the Soludo administration.
The Deputy Governor Dr. Onyekachukwu Ibezim disclosed that Mbaukwu community is currently benefiting from a 12 billion naira road project connecting Mbaukwu-Awgbu-Okpeze-Ametiti-Amansea together with bridges which he said is the new Awka 2.0, adding that the governor is also checking an erosion that is almost devastating Namkpu village in Mbaukwu community.
According to him, the governor is not only checking erosion devastations in Mbaukwu community but also giving them a road to connect them to other communities in Awka-South Local Government Area and beyond.
Ibezim affirmed that it is in the current state government that Mbaukwu community got street lights and a completed road project linking Obolo and Akabo villages down to Nnamdi Azikiwe University Pre-science School and already being used by the people of Mbaukwu community.
Ibezim noted that Mbaukwu has been a great beneficiary of Governor Soludo's human capital development programmes, appointments, employments and a host of others. He also pointed out that the community has what is known as the Mbaukwu Project; a Public Private Community Partnership platform where individuals deployed personal resources to provide basic amenities in partnership with government.
He said government has done more for Mbaukwu community than they have done for themselves and as a result, they want to start doing things for themselves because government can not do everything for the people.
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