Over 200 houses at risk as gully erosion ravages Ogwashi-Uku in Delta State

More than 200 houses in Ogwashi-Uku, Aniocha South Local Government Area of Delta State, are at risk of caving in because of a gully that is expanding across the Ogbe-Ahor and Ogbe-Umuokwuni quarters of the town, an investigation by Nigerian Tribune has found.

Several households have already evacuated the affected areas, the report said, with the deep and steep chasm created by the erosion extending to more than 100 feet below sea level.

Community leader and the Azuezeka I of Ogwashi-Uku, Pa Mathias Nwabudike, described the threat as a 'Save Our Souls' matter and presented a two-page letter written to the state Commissioner for Environment and copied to the Federal Minister of Environment, calling for urgent intervention to save households and properties already endangered by the erosion.

Officials of the Ministry of Environment recently paid a fact-finding visit to the affected areas, according to the report, even as the community appealed to well-meaning indigenes of Ogwashi-Uku to take measures to arrest the situation.

Nwabudike said the gully deepens every rainy season and has been ongoing for several years, adding that the affected areas have no drainage channels to divert runoff water whenever downpours occur. He appealed to both the federal and state governments to carry out an immediate assessment and survey of the gully site, include it in their erosion-control programme and construct drainages and stabilisation works.

A non-governmental organisation in the state, The Change Makers Forum Ogwashi-Ukwu, also appealed to the federal and Delta State governments to save the community. Its coordinator, Feyisetan Akeeb Kareem, said the group had formerly petitioned the Public Complaints Commission over the gully, and that a customary court had to be relocated from Ogbe-Umuokwuni to near the INEC office because of the erosion.