Ifeanyi IbeBarring an 11th hour miraculous intervention by The Almighty, the compound of His Lordship, Bishop Dr. Mark Oturu will be overrun by the ferocious gully erosion attacking the Ring Road at the Obugwu end. If the rains return and the situation remains as it is Ariam-Usaka and Abia State will witness a calamity of the hugest proportion in history.
Whereas Bishop Dr Mark Oturu is going to have a huge personal loss as is very pertinent, already Ariam-Usaka is drinking from the cup of bitterness of the erosion. The clan has been cutoff from this point of the Ring Road as there is no more vehicular movement beyond here from Ime Ariam-Ala-Ala on your way to Amaegbu, Usaka-Ukwu, Ndieke-Okoro to Ekwelu. It is same scenario from Ekwelu on the reverse; your movement comes to an abrupt end at the Obugwu Central School as you cannot move to Ekpiri-Ala-Ala/Azunchai and indeed to Ariam-Ala-Ala on the Ikot-Ekpene-Umuahia highway.
The above scenario was too evident during the commissioning of the Community Hall built and donated to Ndiokoro by its illustrious son, Dr. Nzeribe Okegbue on December 15th 2022. The commissioning which drew to the border clan the who is who in the LGA and Abia State government, including House Speaker Engr. Chinedum Orji and House Member, Hon. Stanley Nwabuisi, etc, the venue could not be accessed through Obugwu. They had no choice than to go through the Ekwelu-Oboni-Upah end of the Ring Road. That’s how things stand presently in the clan.
This erosion site on the Ring Road has successfully divided the clan into two: one from Ariam-Ala-Ala to the Obugwu Civic Hall and the other from Ekwelu to Obugwu Central School. This has created unspeakable socioeconomic pangs across the community. Today’s hardship will be child’s play by the time the rains return in the year. Remedial attention is needed now more than ever.
How did Ariam-Usaka come to this sorry existential challenge? The answer is in no other factor than the lack of commitment on the part of the Abia State government to construct the Ring Road. In the political and economic corridors of power in the state everyone knows that this road is the only factor holding the clan down in terms of socioeconomic development in the 21st Century They are also fully aware that “the sky will be the beginning” of development for the clan if the road is constructed. It is painfully difficult and irreconcilable to grapple with the reality that in the 21st Century world Ariam-Usaka has not seen any tarred road in all its 15 villages as the government prefers to look the other way. The community only sees tar on the Ikot-Ekpene-Umuahia highway. Compare this with Akwai-Ibom where Ikot-Ekpene (a neighbouring community which is not the size of Ariam-Usaka) has its streets tarred.
In every election cycle the community will be patronised and promises will be made concerning the road. In the 24 years of PDP from 1999, including governments of Senator Orji Uzor Kalu and Senator Theodore Orji and from 2015 under Gov Ikpeazu till today, the road has been abandoned to a deeper and rapacious erosional ruination that is about to sweep away everything on its path.
Thus, the lack of will or deliberate wickedness of the state government under whose purview the construction of this road falls is responsible for the suffering of Ariam-Usaka people. In fact, without motorcycles there would be no transportation on this road.
During his visit last week, Speaker Chinedum Orji reportedly advised Ariam-Usaka Professionals(a leading association in the clan) to urge the state government to cancel the so called contract of the road which has spanned over ten years without execution. The speaker, an adroit, humble, grassroots politician who has been involved in practical delivery of democratic dividends across his Ikwuano-Umuahia Federal Constituency, has not hidden his helplessness over the road. In the same vein, his colleague, Hon. Stanley Nwabuisi who had in the past toured the road and erosion site, has not hidden his disdain for the government on account of the state of this road. It is therefore a call to duty for the AUP and all stakeholders to do the needful by urging the government to cancel the contract forthwith. As the contract is being cancelled a fresh one must be awarded within the few months of Ikpeazu’s government.
In a 2014 SOS intervention that resulted from the effort of the Ugwuegbu Community led by His Lordship, Bishop Dr Mark Oturu, the Ikwuano LGA and the Federal Parliament through the committee on Ecology, carried out some form of remedial work on the site thereby saving many homes from going down. However, in what then was a poorly executed job and lack of maintenance, the intervention collapsed as the impact of the erosion became stridently violent.
Today, as the situation has become more life threatening than ever, who is going to save Ariam-Usaka from from an unprecedented, imminent destruction? This is the ample time for lives and property to be saved in the agrarian community. Ariam-Usaka stakeholders should speak in an unmistakeable tone of language by deploying the ring road and erosion challenge as bargaining tools for an agreement for votes in the 2023 governorship and legislative elections.
Ifeanyi Ibe, AUP’s Emeritus President
He can be reached on 08038945092 and ifyibe0869@gmail.com
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