The Federal High Court, Awka and the ongoing multi-million naira Federal Secretariat complex, both in Anambra State, are currently under threat of gully erosion.
The News Agency of Nigeria correspondent who visited the erosion site reports that the tarred road to the state secretariat, through Ekwueme Square, is also endangered.
Furthermore, the gully is already eating off the perimeter fence of the moribund Anambra State Secretariat building, commenced under the Governor Chinwoke Mbadinuju administration, thereby endangering the structure.
When contacted, Dr. Ifeanyi Ejikeme, the state Commissioner for the Environment, said the situation was being handled within the limit of the resources available to the state.
Ejikeme, who is also the Head of Nigerian Erosion Water Shed Management Project Steering Committee in the state, told NAN that the site had been included in the list of NEWMAP approved sites.
According to him, intervention works will soon commence on the site, to curtail the enormity of the erosion activity there.
Meanwhile, a farmer in the vicinity expressed concern that a good portion of her farmland had been washed away, adding that the whole farm might be eroded before the rains ceased.
She said that the erosion began like a joke but had now assumed a monumental dimension.
She said: “We are in perpetual fear here; we are losing part of our farm to this erosion daily, especially during rains.
“It could have been avoided, if the government had intervened early.”
Also speaking, Chibuike Onyeama, a civil servant, expressed regret that no attempt had been made to control the menace.
He wondered how the Ministry of Environment could sit back and watch institutional buildings being eroded.
Onyeama said: “This is a disaster in the waiting; this Ekwueme Square to the secretariat is breaking down; across the road is Federal Secretariat building, and beside this erosion is the Federal High Court.
“You can see this old state secretariat is already being washed off and these electric poles are just waiting for time to fall into the gully.”
NAN reports that Anambra is one of the states benefiting from NEWMAP intervention.
It would be recalled that the state recently got World Bank approval to commence intervention works at four sites including: Umuoji, Ogidi, Enugwu-Ukwu and Nkpor.
– NAN