Category: SouthEast

A house of Assembly aspirant in Afikpo, Ebonyi State, Mr Iheukwumere Okogwu  has handed over a three-bedroom flat he built to a homeless man, Chukwu Oko in Ezi Agbii, Ukpa, in Afikpo North Local Government Area of the state.

Speaking to The Nation, Mr Iheukwumere said that despite having limited resources, he dedicated his salary as special assistant to a lawmaker in the state to start the project in 2015, due to the fact that the beneficiary had been sleeping outside with his six children since 2007.

He said that, though he was contesting to represent Afikpo North East Constituency in Ebonyi State House of Assembly, under Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN), the gesture does not have any political undertone, but was just a token of appreciation for God’s blessings and protection since he was born.

He said, “Mr Chukwu Oko has been through a lot in life, especially after losing his father at a tender age. In fact, because of the poor background of his family, he started fending for himself at the tender age of 14 and was even a professional driver in Lagos for over 20 years, but had nothing to show for it until he returned to Afikpo.

“His house collapsed in 2007 and he was almost sleeping outside with his 6 kids for about 8 years. I was passing there one day and saw the condition of where my fellow human being was living and instantly challenged myself to reconstruct the building.

“I decided to use everything I get as salary to build this house.  I took up this challenge in 2015 and I thank God that it is a success story today. So, I gave it out today on my birthday, as a token of appreciation for God’s blessings and protection.

“I dedicated my salary as an S. A to Hon. Maria Ude Nwachi and built the house. I have built that house for over three years now. I built it as salary comes and when I exhaust the money as a salary, I hold on and wait for another salary to come.

“It was one Saturday morning we went for a communal work for our town hall when we were returning and I saw the building on the ground. It rained a night before the morning we went for the communal work and the building collapsed.

“I told myself I can do something in this house and started planning towards it. in this life I believe in determination and it has been working for me. Thank goodness that toady my courage has fetched me that building, my courage has helped me to assist humanity, my courage has helped to provide a shelter for this man,” Mr Okogwu said.

Reacting Mr Chukwu Oko said Mr Okogwu apart from building the house for him has also been helping him to feed his family of six children.

“I am short of words because even if I work throughout my lifetime, I can’t build this house. This house collapsed and people stopped coming to us so that the remaining part of it can’t fall on them. Any time it is raining, I will be panicking a lot and afraid it may collapse completely and kill us. There was never a time slept comfortably in this house especially during raining season because of its bad condition.

“I don’t know Iheukwumere Okogwu who built this wonderful house for me, it is God that used him and provided this befitting house for me. I did not even know he is from my village.

“I came in contact with this person when I went to drink in a joint at Omaka Ejali in our place. People rushed me and started harassing me that I owed them some money. When Okogwu saw what was happening, he rushed them and started fighting them and they left me.

“I asked people around who the man that saved me was and they told me he is Nelson’s son. From there, we became close and we started relating very well. From time to time, he keeps bring bags of rice and other commodities to me. He has been so good to me and I don’t know what I will use and pay him back.

“This house which he demolished and built with cement block was a hut which was serving as a kitchen when we came back from the civil war in 1970. It was a local kitchen where my mother lived then”.

“My father died that time and someone adopted me and took me to Ozziza in Afikpo here. The person told me that he wants me to be circumcised according to our tradition and I told him that my mother has no house and demanded that a house be built for her before I will be circumcised. The man later built the house with mud, palm fronds and other local materials”.

“I started hustling and went to Owerri Imo state, made little money and came back and changed the roof with zinc. Because it was a mud house, a part of it collapsed and fell down and I became stranded.  I got married newly when it fell down and it troubled me though I had hoped that things will be better in future”.

“My poor condition that time made me to love and appreciate people. I was happy that people were progressing and was assisting people the little I could. Each time I come back from timber shade where I do menial jobs to earn a living, I will dash people the money I realized from it and came back empty”.

“I did not know that God will use it and reward me especially as people were abusing me that I was dashing people money when I am very poor and have no house. I have been working in that Timber shade since 1990”.

He described his benefactor as a very generous man and prayed for God’s blessings on him.

“I have six children and I did not marry early.  Okogwu is very generous and does not eat alone. If he comes where people are drinking, he will buy a cartoon of beer and give them. The only thing he hates is fighting because of the beer. Nobody will deny that he has not enjoyed what this man has.”

The chairman of Peace Mass Transit (PMT), Chief Maduka Onyishi has said that the company is targeting zero-accident as the year comes to an end.

Onyishi said this at a one-day refresher course for 50 of the company’s drivers, organised by Greenlight Initiative in Emene near Enugu.

Onyishi, who was represented by the Executive Director Operations of PMT, Mr Uche Collins, revealed that the company vehicles convey a minimum of 30,000 passengers per day across the country.

He noted that with 3,000 vehicles loading every day in the company’s 65 terminals spread across the country, there was the need to ensure safety of passengers, particularly during the ‘ember months’ when the volume of vehicular movements usually increased.

Onyishi explained that the training programmes would enable them maintain professional discipline and right conduct bearing in mind passengers’ safety whenever they are driving.

“Apart from the training and re-training, we have other forms of control on the drivers, which includes mechanical, administrative, speed limiters, quick intervention team who checkmate the drivers on each route. We do not just train and leave them like that; we must ensure that as they drive, they apply what they were taught during training courses or workshops,” he said.

In a lecture titled; “Applying Defensive Driving on the Roads”, Mr Moses Okhiban, Deputy Core Commander of Federal Road Safety Corps, Zonal Headquarters, Enugu, attributed road crashes to three key factors – human, mechanical and environmental.

“The human factor has to do with the driver’s negligence, the mechanical has to do with faulty vehicle while the environmental has to do with the bad road or bad whether effects on the road users/drivers,” he explained.

Okhiban advised the drivers to always engage in what he called ‘defensive driving’ – a situation in which they would assume the other drivers or road users are ‘mad people’ who ought to be avoided.

“Bear in mind that every other driver is mad; use defensive driving each time you are driving and don’t trust every road user. Always bear in mind that there is always a danger on the road before you reach your destination,” he said.

He further encouraged the drivers to avoid drugs, alcohol and other intoxicants while driving since consumption of such substances would affect their sense of judgment negatively.

“Avoid needless distraction such as answering phone calls while driving; a loss of concentration for mere second could result to terrible consequences,” he added.

The Executive Director of GreenLight Initiative, Mr Simon Obi, said that it was regrettable that Nigeria had the highest record of road crashes in Africa, adding that road accident was regarded as the 6th cause of death globally.

Obi explained that not less than 100 drivers would benefit from the training after which they would be issued certificates.

Ebonyi State is blessed with many mineral resources, among which are limestone, zinc, chalcopyrite, oxide.

These minerals are scattered across various communities in the state. The resources are extracted by various mining companies which get their licences from the federal government, not the state, a fact that has led to a lot of conflicts and challenges. Many of these companies do not pay attention to the environment before, during and after their mining activities. Many don’t have Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) certificate before embarking on mining.

They also do not follow international best practices in their operations leading to degradation of the environment and loss of lives.

Also illegal miners have sprung up across the state because of the inability of the federal Ministry of Solid Minerals and Mines to properly regulate the industry.

To tackle these obvious challenges, the Federal Ministry of Mines and Solid Minerals recently created the Mineral Resources and Environmental Management Committee (MIREMCO) across the states of the federation.

MIREMCO in Ebonyi State is chaired by Mrs Jacintha Nworie, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Solid Minerals.

The committee after its recent inauguration did not waste time to swing into action as it has held numerous meetings, trainings and workshops for miners and other stakeholders in the state to sensitise them on the need to be professional in their activities.

One of such sensitisation meetings held at the Cabinet Office, Abakaliki, attended by the leadership of the miners, officials of the Minsitry of Agriculture, Ministry of Industry and Solid Minerals and Federal Mining Office.

Mrs Nworie in her speech harped on the need for miners to embrace underground mining also known as shaft mining instead of the surface mining presently being used by many of them.

According to her, the shaft mining is safer for the miners, the community and the environment.

While shaft mining is going on, agricultural activities will also be going on at the surface. But this open surface mining has a lot of risks involved.  Some villagers go to pick remnants of the minerals and sometimes the excavator used in the mining crushes them to death”.

She further lamented the loss of lives recorded in the state as a result of open mining as many people get drowned in the open pits during the rainy season and urged the miners to always reclaim the mining site to avoid such dates.

She warned that her committee will not hesitate to blacklist any mining company that fails to carry out the necessary reclamation exercise on their sites after mining.

“Some of the mine sites in my own place, Okposi in Ezza North have claimed the lives of so many children as a result of open pit. When rain falls a lot of water will store there and people will go there to swim and in the process get drowned”.

“This meeting is to create awareness about our functionality in the state as a committee representing the state in federal mining. This meeting is to create awareness to let the public know that we have come to be in Ebonyi state. Ebonyi state is endowed with numerous minerals such as led, zinc, chalcopyrite, oxide etc. And our objective in MIREMCO is to serve as an interface between the ministry, state, local government, mineral title holders and host communities, to ensure development and exploitation of mineral resources in a sustainable and orderly manner; to promote harmonious working relationship between the mining companies and the host communities,” she added.

On the relationship between the state government and the miners Mrs Nwakego said that “Ebonyi state and Miners association are relating very well except some few chaps drawn by the opposition in the state who are everywhere instigating and fermenting trouble”.

“We called this meeting to let them know that the state government is ready to work in harmony with them but what we need is there cooperation. We cannot close our eyes and allow the environment of the state degraded and devastated, she vowed

“We are also concerned about the health of the citizens. After you have mined who will reclaim the land? The licence or title is issued by the federal government. After you have collected your title, the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), must be in place. Some of the mine sites in my own place have claimed the lives of so many children as a result of open pit. When rain falls a lot of water will store there and people will go there to swim and in the process get drowned”.

“So our meeting today is to see how we can work together to do proper mining in Ebonyi state. The state government is relating with federal and international bodies to come and see how to introduce underground mining also known as shaft mining. While shaft mining is going on, agricultural activities will also be going on at the surface. But this open surface mining has a lot of risk involved.  Some villagers go to pick remnants sometimes excavator crushes them to death”.

She said the Committee is also looking at how to bring illegal mining in the state to an end.

“We have given the miners training and helped them to become professional in their activities”.

Some of the miners who spoke at the event, including Mr James Iboko and Augustine Oke thanked the state government and the committee for holding such workshop which they described as eye opener on the modern trends in mining.

They also promised to put into practice what they have been thought at the training in their various sites. The miners also pledged their unalloyed support to the Governor David Umahi-led government.

Ohaji-Egbema and Oguta Local Government Areas, otherwise known as the food basket of Imo State, have sustained the food needs of the state including agricultural and animal produce. Gigantic cassava and yam tubers, as well as lush green vegetables and grains were a common sight in the agrarian communities that dominate the two council areas.

From outside the state, traders troop into the local markets in Ohaji-Egbema to buy agricultural produce like cassava, yam, vegetables, plantain, fish among others at a relatively cheap price.

Also, 80 percent of food items and other farm produce sold in major markets across the state are from the two council areas. This is so because the people are predominantly farmers and are blessed with fertile soil that boosts agriculture.

This was before the monstrous flood that swept through the communities, washing away massive farm settlements together with the farms and fish ponds.

Today, what used to be massive farmlands is now a large pool of water, such that one can hardly differentiate between the original ocean and what used to be farmlands.

The loss is monumental as crops, fishes worth millions of naira were swept away by the ravaging flood, but the greatest and current challenge is the imminent threat of possible food scarcity in the state.

There are early signs of food scarcity in the state. The prices of food items have risen tremendously in the last two months as supply steadily diminishes.

At the markets, the prize cassava and yam tubers that announce Ohaji-Egbema in markets within and outside the state have all vanished. The farmers are already groaning, gone with the flood are their sweat and means of livelihood.

Ossemoto, Oguta, Eziorsu, Orsuobodo, Opuowa, Mmahu and Etekwuru communities are yet to come to terms with the fact that all they labored for in a whole farming season have all been submerged by flood.

For Izunwnanne Paul, a renowned yam farmer, it is still like dream to see his large farm with all the yams and cassava that were all ripe for harvest go under water.

Speaking with The Nation, the middle aged farmer lamented that, “I lost everything I worked for in a whole season. We tried to harvest the yams as the flood came but it was too late. We were only able to harvest a little of the yams before they were covered with water. If you go to my farm today you will not even believe that there was any farm on that spot before, it is now an ocean.

“My family is facing serious food scarcity and other challenges because farming is our only source of livelihood. The flood has also put me into serious debt, because I borrowed money from cooperative society to cultivate the farm, now everything is gone and I don’t know what net to do”.

A coordinator of one of the flooded farm settlements in Oguta, Ignatius Amanze, estimated the loss at over N100 million, adding that they have never experienced such calamity.

According to him, “we are yet recover from the shock of that havoc, all our farms and fish ponds were washed away almost at the time of harvest. Though some of the farmers were lucky that they have started harvesting before the flood came, but people like me were not that lucky, I lost everything.

“We are now living like refugees, we are appealing to the state and Federal Government to come to our aid, otherwise we may not survive this. We have been feeding the entire state from what we produce in our farms but now that everything is gone, I foresee hunger in the land”.

However, Evans Ugoh, the Coordinator Imo-Abia Operations Office of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), said that the scarcity will be average and may not be fierce as predicted.

He disclosed that only about 30% of the farm settlements were affected by the flood.

In his words, “I think food scarcity in the state will be relatively average because it is not all the agrarian communities that were affected. Only 30 percent of the communities are in swampy areas”.

The NEMA boss advised the farmers in the other settlements that are located in flood prone areas to relocate.

An applicant, Chidera Nwobodo has won the Lose to Win competition of Edmark Expo held in Enugu.

Chidera was able to shed within 90 days 27kg from 81kg. She went home with N50,000 cash and several products of Edmark.

The runner-up, Roseline Nwaenugu smiled home with the second prize of N35,000 and several products of Edmark.

The company said it organised the event in its commitment to drive positive change through fighting obesity in Nigeria.

It said it was marching on with weight loss campaign over the course of 9 years and continued to reach in and touch the lives of all Nigerians that help regain and reclaim their health through weight loss.

According to Edmark, Chidera stood out as the contestant who lost the most amount of weight in 90 days.

“The one-day event is an epitome of the saying ‘seeing is believing’. From presenting the macro view of the company to the crowning of the weight loss challenge winners, the event carry answers to questions that Nigerians would have regarding the business, the products, and the company as a whole.

“The Edmark Expo is a concept of exhibiting the opportunity that the company offers to all Nigerians – a way to reclaim and maintain their health, a path towards financial freedom, and a means to better their lives.”