Erosion: Bwari area council calls for FG’s intervention

The Chairman of Bwari Area Council, Mr John Gabaya, has appealed to the Federal Government to intervene in communities affected by erosion and flood in the district.

Addressing newsmen after visiting some of the affected communities on Tuesday in Abuja, Gabaya described the incidence as unfortunate and critical, while also calling on both the federal Government and the FCTA to come to the rescue of the residents.

“We need Federal Government’s assistance because the council, 10 years from now, cannot solve this problem. The erosion has caused a serious havoc and this was as a result of the recent heavy rainfall.

“Thank God there are no casualties but some houses have so far been slightly affected. I must say, the ecological challenge in this council is numerous and so many villages are faced with this problem.

“Once it rains, the rivers and streams overflow and people are automatically cut off from accessing the roads that leads to their businesses or children to their schools.”

He listed the affected areas as Mashafa, Gudupe, Bamboyi, Dankubo, villages, which he said were all connected to the same access road that have become inaccessible at the moment.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that at Dutse-Baupuma area of the district, three bridges linking residents to the township collapsed following the recent heavy downpour.

Some of the residents who spoke to NAN also called for governments urgent attention to address the ecological challenge in the communities.

Mr Nwokike Obinna, of the Obasanjo road, Sagbayi II community said that the major bridge connecting the community to the township had collapsed following Monday’s downpour.

“We woke up to see the bridge we have been managing to have finally collapsed. People have not been able to go to work or anywhere else because of the unfortunate incident.

“We thank God there has not been any loss of life but we appeal to government to urgently come to our aid because this is not what the community can shoulder, we need the government with this.

“Even though we have alerted the area council and the chairman has visited and promised to do something but our fear is we do not know how soon it may be.”

Mr Zachariah George, a resident of Freedom Avenue, Sagbayi III in Dutse, said that residents have decided to contribute to buy wood to create a temporary passage so that residents can move.

He said: “No one has been able to go anywhere since this happened. We cannot even go to the market to buy food to eat, so we needed to tax ourselves so that we can buy wood to create a temporary bridge for now.

“We have even collected some of the wood on credit before we gather the money from other residents.”

Recall that the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMET) had in its 2019 Seasonal Rainfall Prediction revealed that some cities would be hit by floods this year, including FCT