Tragedy struck
the village of Otuke and Owerri Ajah Obosi in Idemili North Local Government Area of
Anambra State where a family of three lost their lives due to heavy down pour
that devastated buildings, roads and farm land in the two communities.
The unfortunate
incident occurred at the early hour of
Thursday where a canal close to the residence of Mr. Chibuzor Anago and his
family collapsed and carved the building fence into their living room.
Ashiwaju.org gathered that the family were asleep before the unfortunate incident happened and were woken to
their death on that unfortunate morning.
Speaking to Journalists,
a Resident of Okute and Owerri Ajah Obosi, Mr. John Akabueze described the incident as
inevitable, owing to the fact that the building is closed to a large gully
erosion, which the state government tried to arrest by constructing the canal,
but was later metamorphosed into a
larger erosion that needed urgent government attention to forestall greater
future disaster to the two communities.
His words; ‘ I
want to appeal to government of all tiers to come to our aid, because, if this
erosion is not quickly arrested, am sure that this village you see now may soon
be covered by this erosion’.
The Canal is
blocked and government waste disposal agency never took it as a duty to remove
that debris and our people too do contribute to the hazard by dumping refuse in
the drains, which is now assisting the erosion to expand than its normal
shape’’.
While
commiserating with the community, the
senator representing Anambra central in the National Assembly. Senator Uche
Ekwunife condemned the act of residents dumping refuse in the drains and called
on government of all tiers to assist in the erosion control of the state.
She lamented that
the people would suffer a disaster though not man-made but could be avoided, and
leverage on the need for the local government system independence, to enable it
discharge its duty creditable.
Senator Ekwunife
enjoined the present administration to ensure fund accrued to the local
government areas get to them without undue interruption from the state
governments, being the closest tier of government to the grassroots.
‘’Let me put this
straight that the local government authorities in Nigeria need to be strengthened and I want
to call for financial autonomy of the local government system as the benchmark
for democratic development and the
closet tier of government to the
grassroots.
I also want to
call on federal government to kindly give urgent attention to correcting some
major erosion menace beveling the people of south east and urge President
Buhari to kindly consider this as one of the major challenges the people of the
zone would need him to address URGENTLY ’ Ekwunife appealed.