Communities ravaged by erosion in Edo State will have cause to smile soon as government begins remedial work, writes Osagie Otabor, Benin.
Ogbeson in Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area and Auchi, headquarters of Estako West Local Government Area of Edo State, are two communities with similar problems in Edo State. For many years, residents of both communities hoped and prayed for solution to the gully erosion that has washed away a large portion of both communities.
Several houses worth millions of naira have been lost to the erosion while many persons have also been killed.
Auchi gully erosion, which started in 1980s during the reign of late Otaru A.G Momoh, began on the major road leading to River Orle beside Paradise hotel and gradually spread into the community destroying properties.
Former military president Gen. Ibrahim Babangida was said to have declared the gully a disaster when he visited the area in 1985. Contract for the control of the gully were awarded but the contractor allegedly ran away from site.
In 2007, Otaru of Auchi, His Royal Highness, Aliru Momoh, Ikelebe III, led the community to protest neglect of the gully erosion site by the contractor and to draw the world’s attention to possible extinction of his kingdom.
HRH Momoh later told reporters that the Auchi erosion problem would have been solved if competent contractors were hired. He accused the Federal Ministry of Environment of a deliberate attempt to keep out contractors who have the requisite experience to do the job
He said a firm named Valery that was also awarded the contract never executed the job and that investigation later revealed at the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) that some companies given the job had no profile or files with CAC.
According to him, “They gave the job to the people who have no skill and competence to do it. They (contractors) came here and didn’t do anything and went away and said: ‘Well, how to do a project of this nature is sharing the money at the ministry’.
“Inspite of our pressures and so on, I sent people to CAC, to examine and find out the profile of all the contractors who placed bids for the contract for the erosion and found out that many of them don’t have any profile with the CAC.
“I am talking about the Federal Government. I am not talking about the state government, except for the fact that money was released by the World Bank and we didn’t know what happened to it, that was during Prof Oseriemen Osunbor’s period.
“The World Bank approved $20 million for Ede and Auchi erosion. Bids were advertised for the erosion contracts and at the end of the exercise, there was nothing to show for it.
“And in Ede as it were, I came to know later when we were having a meeting in Benin, they only got somebody who came to them and said they got contract for erosion. He placed a signpost of the name of the company. That was the end of it as they never came back.”
In 2009, some residents of Auchi took their fate in their own hands and decided to appease the Orle River goddess. A white fowl was slaughtered and incantations were invoked to appease Orle to stop the gully devastation which they termed “devil rain”.
They claimed that the gully erosion was because the community embraced Islam and refused to worship their mother “Orle”.
Nurredeen Igbiebor, a member of the family of the keeper of the Orle shrine, told our reporter then that Orle had revealed what would become of Auchi kingdom if the people refused to worship her
“She told me that everywhere has to be clean white. If people can returned to clean and decorate its shrine with white native chalk. Everywhere in this environment is very dirty. It was not how it showed it to me in the dream. She said we should change the way we are doing things. Everywhere has to be clean and white. We killed cow, white cock, used native chalk, salt and poured libation to worship her.”
Despite the appeasement of Orle, the gully erosion continued to expand.
The gully at Ogbeson community known as the Queen Ede gully started after the dualisation of the Benin-Agbor road and is almost cutting off the Benin-Agbor highway. Contractors engaged by previous administration to tackle the problem worsen the situation.
There is, however, hope for residents in both communities as Governor Adams Oshiomhole has secured a World Bank loan to tackle the menace. Also to be reclaimed is the gully at Ekenwan Road.
Speaking at the flagging-off ceremony of the erosion control projects, Oshiomhole said he was taken aback to discover abandoned equipment at the site when he inspected supposed on-going job at the site.
Oshiomhole disclosed that both the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led federal and state governments awarded and paid for the same contract to different contractors but no work was done.
He said he resorted to help from the World Bank after President Goodluck Jonathan refused to help the state from the ecological fund.
According to him, “You have a real scandal when Edo State government under PDP awarded this project and paid for it and the PDP Federal Government awarded the same contract and also paid for it. They both claimed they were doing the job, but as you can see, they simply caused more complications.
“They constructed a small drain to take the water out of the road without taking it to the ultimate destination. That was how the crack started. If they had fixed it properly, it could have cost us less than N5 million today.
“When my attention was drawn by the Edo State Ministry of Works to the fact that this erosion was caused by a design error when the Asaba Road was being constructed by the Federal Ministry of Works, I wrote to Abuja to complain about the erosion challenges in this place. I listed quite a number of erosion sites in the state, including the Queen Ede Erosion problem.”
Oshiomhole added: “When I asked for the project report, the ministry officials told me ‘job is on-going’ and subsequently, I invited the officials to accompany me to show me what they meant by ‘the job is on-going’. What I saw here was an abandoned equipment; there was no single worker on site. That is what they meant by ‘the job is on-going’ but that was not the only thing I found very strange.
“We tried to trace the contract document and it was clear that the job was never meant to be done. It was just a cover up to siphon the fund by the previous government under the political party we want to chase out of Abuja now.
“So, when we speak sometimes with anger and insist on change, it is because we can’t continue this kind of tradition where in the name of the problem of the people, money is misappropriated and this money goes into private pockets. I have to emphasize this so that you do not think it was at the beginning of this government. It was a previous PDP government. I renewed our appeal to the Federal Government to provide resources for us to fix this problem; again, we didn’t get any answer.
“That is the basis of the interaction between Edo State Government and the World Bank and of course like Dr. Amos Abu reminds us, the bank believes that to benefit from their facilities, you go through a very rigorous process. We have to reorder the way government finances are handled in this state, ensure there is data transparency, eliminate inefficiency from our system, and computerise government operations in order to minimise human errors
“All of these we had to do in order to make governance more effective. All these are what the bank required. Today, Edo State is the 2nd state that has attracted direct support from the World Bank.”
Oshiomhole, who lamented the damage done to human and material resources including the Catholic Church by the gully erosion, said: “The last time I was here, I saw that the threat to the community has increased. This school had collapsed, the Catholic Church was almost gone, several of the buildings down here had been washed away and some people had even lost their lives.
“I went through one bush path to go down about kilometer away and I was shocked to find houses almost completely covered up. Of course, their owners had left and some have even died. Today, we have changed all of that. So when we say change, it is not only in terms of politics, it is changing the way PDP has mismanaged our country where government give contracts to friends and associates who are hopelessly incompetent and who lack the will to do the job and yet public funds is expended to pay them.
“We have borrowed N5.7 billion to protect this great kingdom of Auchi, to restore hope and to remove the fear and the pain that people suffer when it rains because that is the primary purpose of government. The loan that the bank gave to us is at an interest rate of less than 1 per cent and it was spread so thinly that we pay painlessly. So, it takes a sensible government, competent and transparent for people to access this World Bank facility.
“So rather than give the contract on the basis of well-thought-out designs that can be scientifically checked and verified as suitable and proper, they chose one of themselves who knows next to nothing about civil engineering or erosion control so that the money can be taken.”
Task Team Leader, Nigeria Erosion Watershed Management Project, (NEWMAP), World Bank Office in Nigeria, Dr. Amos Abu, said NEWMAP is a transformational project with the main partner being the World Bank, FAO, federal and state governments, particularly Edo State.
He said: “I am very happy to report that in terms of meeting the requirement of this project, Edo State has been a leading example.
“This kind of intervention has been carried out in countries like China, Brazil and Indian promising that the result achieved in those countries will be replicated in Nigeria having brought out 2.5million people from poverty.
“Whatever will be done, the challenge is on all of us all to make it work. The money we are going to use to do this project is a loan that will be paid over several periods of years, so it is important for us to be prudent in the management of the project.
“The terrain of Auchi area is something we cannot change. We have done the design and the people who have the expertise and the skills are going to translate it and you will see the drain that will convey the runoff water into the water bodies. Beyond that, the natural environment will be tampered with, some houses will go but thank God the resources are there to create some compensation.”
HRH Momoh thanked the governor for delivering the good things of life to the people of the state in general and the Auchi Kingdom.
He said: “I have no doubt that what we are seeing here today is something that we have fought for. We demonstrated in 2006, we closed down the expressway and said that Auchi erosion be declared a disaster.
“The Federal Government did not respond and we ended up with nothing but today, this is being realised through the efforts of Governor Adams Oshiomhole.”
But State Chairman of the PDP, Chief Dan Orbih, said Jonathan should be commended for facilitating the World Bank loan for the state.
