Our battle against erosion, by Anambra, Enugu

Erosion remains a major headache in the Southeast despite efforts to contain the problem. The use of the ecological fund has also not addressed the challenge. What else can be done? Som of the affected states warn that erosion may sink the region, if urgent remedial steps are not taken. Sina Fadare reports.
THE erosion menace in the Southeast is worrisome. There is no state in the region that is not affected. From Abia to Anambra, Ebonyi to Enugu and Imo, the states are ravaged by erosion. To fight erosion and related disasters, the Federal Government initiated the ecological fund. But to Osita Obi, Coordinator of Recovery of Nigeria Project from Umuawulu in Awka North of Anambra State, the ecological fund is a fraud. He said going by the havoc done in his community by erosion, the day of doom is at hand if remedial measures are not taken fast. Obi said: “It is first one thing to access the ecological fund, but another is to channel it towards the real ecological issue. That is why we are dancing on a spot. Ecological fund as far as I am concerned is a fraud; that is why President Muhammadu Buhari should close all these loopholes. As l am speaking to you now, the two bridges in Umuawulu community where l hail from is about to collapse due to erosion menace. This is the place where you have the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Orientation Camp. If something urgent is not done now the bridges may give way.”
Pa Chinoso James of Oko in Orumba North local government area said erosion was ravaging the community. “Have you been to the house of former Vice President Alex Ekueme? Erosion is almost taking it away. The situation here is bad.” He laughed over the issue of ecological fund, saying the Southeast is marginalised in the scheme of things, otherwise the Federal Government will pay attention to erosion in the area. “l was a teacher for many years before l retired and l have travelled round this country but my conclusion is that somewhere along the line the Federal Government over the years have neglected this part of the country especially on this issue of erosion. One of the core values of the so-called ecological fund is that it should be judiciously and equitably applied to areas where ecological and environmental crisis is threatening.  Now with what is happening in the Southeast as regards erosion, can we say we are equitably treated?” he asked. James went on: “The fund is a fraud by those people who approved the projects because in most cases where it was approved and fund released, the state governments are in the dark, especially in this era of constituency projects by National Assembly members.”

ln the beginning

The ecological fund was established in 1981 is for the multifarious ecological challenges in some parts of the country. Initially, one per cent of the revenue in the Federation Account was set aside for solving ecological problems. It has been increased to three per cent. Its core values include to reduce ecological problems nationwide through timely and efficient mitigation; judicious and equitable management of the fund and ascertaining the facility quality and effective implementation of projects through timely release of funds and monitoring. Funds are released with the President’s approval through the National Committee on Ecological Problems (NCEP), an inter-ministerial body set up in 1985 and headed by the Minister of the Environment. The committee advises the President on the disbursement and management of the fund. But, sadly, the fund is being diverted, with substandard and abandoned projects littering the landscape as greedy officials and contractors continue to defraud the government. In many communities, according to investigation, projects cannot be located; and instead of construction of drainages, the ground was dug.

Threat of ‘erosion tsunami’

The report of the 2015 ecological fund exclusively obtained by The Nation showed that Anambra and Enugu got N3.949 billion worth of projects. Anambra attracted projects worth N2.48 billion, Enugu, N1.496. Four of the projects in Anambra centred on erosion and flood control. Others are remedial work and the Oko gully erosion. Enugu attracted soil erosion, flood control and road improvement works at a cost of N1.499 billion. But, the document did not state the other communities where the projects were sited, except the Oko gully erosion. Investigations, however, showed that the projects were on paper only. At Oko where the soil was dug, the erosion there is an eyesore.
Anambra State Commissioner for Environment Michael Okonkwo said the state was doing its best to combat erosion within its meagre resources. We have over 1000 active erosion sites. The type of soil we have has made erosion accessible here but one cannot rule out the element of human factor which has complicated the situation. Due to erosion we are now arguably the smallest in the country in terms of land mass. Lagos State used to be number one, but today because of the encroachment of erosion, we are number one. When Lagos is getting land from the ocean, we are losing our own.” Okonkwo said since he became commissioner in 2018, the state has not accessed the ecological fund.
“In actual fact, a state of emergency should be declared on erosion crisis in the state. At Nanka, in Orumba South local government, the World Bank has declared that it is the deepest erosion gully in the   world. Their estimate for controlling it is about N20 billon. That is how bad the situation is,” he said, adding that there is nothing on ground to suggest that the state had benefited from the fund. He said he was invited to be part of a funfare to commission where gully erosion was controlled. When l got there it was one of those things that something should be on the ground to justify the resources collected, whereas there are lots of critical erosion sites, which if the state government was privy to, such a fund could have been better utilised.”
The commissioner argued that Anambra might have gone, if not for the intervention of Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project ( NEWMAP) on some critical erosion sites. When NEWMAP started, it was a seven-member states, but now it is 21. Not only that NEWMAP was tackling erosion, it also discouraged the business of sand evacuation which has exposed some parts of the state to the danger of erosion.” Okonkwo lamented that man-made error in terms of dumping waste into gully and water ways has contributed to the menace in the state. When l came on board l started with preventive measures. Governor Willie Obiano was in support of the tree planting initiative in which we embarked on the planting of one million trees. Now we are going into phase two of the project. The other preventive measure is to change the way we design our roads. We discovered that the worst contribution to erosion in the state is improper termination of drainage.”
Director of Ecology and Environment Anthony Odiegwu said the state had not accessed ecological fund. “Sometime last year, some people came saying they are from the Ecological Fund Office in Abuja. They did a survey and said they wanted to visit some of the erosion sites. Since then that was the last we heard of them. Aside from the NEWMAP Intervention and the state’s lean resources which cannot tackle the huge problem of erosion, the state has not benefited from the ecological fund in recent time,” he said. The state was said to have embraced NEWMAP when it could not access the ecological fund. It paid about N1 billion counterpart funding in order to access more loans from the World Bank  projects. NEWMAP Coordinator in the state Michael Ivenso said: “Working in conjunction with the Anambra State government, NEWMAP has tried to make a statement on the need to save Anambra from being bottled up by the African version of Tsunami. We are working on 14 erosion sites which include St. Thomas Aquinas / Nero’s erosion site, Amachalla site in Awka South,the judiciary complex erosion site, Nnewichi site in Nnewi as well as the ones in Idemili, especially Ojoto community. We also have intervention activities at Nkpor fly over, the New Heritage / Omagba erosion site in Onitsha, Uga-Muma-Obosi as well as Ikenga Ogidi. Others include Enugwu-Ukwu, Abidi Umuoji, Ire Obosi and Abagana erosion sites. The problem here in Anambra State is that ecological funds have become difficult to access and the governor has made spirited representations for Anambra to get its own share of the ecological funds and the results are too minimal. Since 2015, Anambra State has not received ecological funds while some states in the country have received up to N6billion,” Ivenso claimed, adding that ecological projects are executed without the knowledge of the state government. When contracts for these projects are being awarded, the Anambra State government was not involved. They do not factor the state in and allow them make inputs on the project and designs. But when it is time for commissioning of these projects they will invite the state Ministry of Environment to come and witness the event. Those projects are so shoddy and do not reflect the essence for awarding them and after the rains, they all collapse and tax payers money is wasted”
Things are no better in Enugu. Places like Udi, Nkanu west and Enugu Ngwo have been ravaged by erosion. Its Director of Ecology and Mineral Resources, Dr. Chigbogu Nnaji, said there was an orchestrated plan to punish those in the area by paying lip service to their ecological problems. The state, he said, had not accessed the ecological fund, adding that there are many erosion sites in the state, with the most critical ones in Udi, Enugu North, Nkanu West and East and Enugu south local government area. The state’s Coordinator of NEWMAP, Vincent Obetta, said the 17 local government areas of the state were facing erosion crisis, adding that NEWMAP’s intervention is the saving grace, otherwise Erosion Tsunami could have wiped some communities away.

The case against ecological fund

Is it true that about N500 billion of the ecological fund was diverted last year? This came to light during public hearing on a bill seeking to prohibit the abuse of the ecological fund organised by the Senate Joint Committee on Ecology and Environment. Presenting the bill, Senator Mohammed Hassan, who represented Yobe South in the 8th National Assembly, said the Senate’s resolve to enact a law to establish and regulate the operations of the fund and other similar funds became imperative because, over the years, the fund was operated like ‘slush’ money and rather utilised for varying unrelated purposes. Successive governments have been serially accused of diverting and enriching themselves from the ecological fund. The operation of the fund has been largely discretionary, with zero guidelines on the disbursement and utilisation of the money,” he added.
Investigation showed that in 2009, N93.7 billion was “illegally transferred from the ecology fund to the consolidated revenue fund to fund the acceleration of capital budget advances to state and local governments to meet revenue shortfall and third quarter development fund warrant. In December 2009, the National Economic Council reported that about N200 billion belonging to the ecological fund had been spent on questionable projects that were either non-existent or had no relations to the fight against ecological disasters,” an ecological fund document stated, adding: “In December 2011, there was also an illegal deduction totalling N20.1 billion from the ecological fund for debt servicing, in addition to the donation of N2 billion in 2013 by former President Goodluck Jonathan to certain states of the federation without any criteria, in which some states did not benefit. In 2013, N22 billion was withdrawn and shared out to some states and local governments, while N2.078 billion was withdrawn towards the building of the second Niger bridge. In 2016, the Auditor General’s report indicated that N28billion was diverted from the fund to service government debts, noting that the examination of the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) records revealed that a total amount of N48, 601,928,311.08 was received into the Ecological Fund in the year, as the required 3.0% deduction from the federation account for the development of natural resources. It was observed that the sum of N28,239,060,570.89 representing about 58% was paid out of the fund as loan to carry out various activities that are not related to the development of natural resources. We recommend that henceforth, the Federal Government deploys these special funds only for the stated objectives of the funds.”

World Bank to the rescue

In September 2013, NEWMAP began intervention activities in Abia, Anambra, Cross River, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo. In Anambra, gully erosion was curtailed through the agency’s help. Today, NEWMAP has spread to 21 states. However, only states that can pay the counterpart-funding benefit from the World Bank loan facility. But the battle against erosion cannot be left to the World Bank and the affected states only.