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Raymond Ozoji, Awka
The Chairman House of Assembly Committee on Environment, Beautification and Ecology and member representing Dunukofia state constituency in the sixth Anambra Legislature Hon. Lawrence Chukwuwike Ezeudu has lamented the non-inclusion of what he described as devastating erosion sites in his constituency in the eight erosion sites selected for intervention by NEWMAP.
The lawmaker, who vehemently queried the criteria for selecting the eight erosion sites slated for intervention by NEWMAP, faulted the entire arrangement on the grounds that there were more terrifying and horrible erosion sites in his constituency currently submerging houses and destroying the ancestral heritage of his constituents.
Ezeudu told journalists in Awka that he decided to raise the alarm in order to draw the attention of the state governor to critical erosion sites in his constituency not mentioned among the selected few for intervention by NEWMAP.
He maintained that the governor should do everything humanly possible to tackle the life-threatening erosion site at Ukpo by-pass adding that the road has been cut into two due to the magnitude of the erosion devastation in the area.
The lawmaker stated that “when you mention eight erosion sites without mentioning the site at Ukpo by-pass, then you have not started counting. In Nkwele, we also have serious problem of erosion which has consumed residential structures. We also have erosion site in Ifitedunu my own community. They were not mentioned. These erosion sites need urgent intervention by NEWMAP.”
Ezeudu, who also functions as the Chief Whip of the sixth assembly, suggested that if the one billion naira provided by the state government for the erosion control project was not adequate, the federal government should assist the Anambra state government in tackling the menace stressing that the erosion sites had been devastating to the entire people of Dunukofia local government area.
He said his constituency needed NEWMAP, NEMA, SEMA as well as international agencies to help tackle erosion and other ecological problems in the area.
