By Izunna Okafor
The people of Ekwulobia Community in Aguata Local Government Area of Anambra State have sought the urgent intervention of the state Governor, Chief Dr. Willie Obiano over the resurfacing of the Umuachiana Erosion Gully and other infrastructural challenges bedeviling the community.
The President General of the Ekwulobia People's Assembly, Engr. Emeka Maduabuchi disclosed the appeal while hosting newsmen to a press conference at the Secretariat Hall of Ekwulobia Peoples Assembly.
He disclosed that the Umuchiana gully erosion which had rendered over 200 Ekwulobia people homeless in the past has started coming back to life again in full force, as the erosion control barriers installed by State Government in the past are being breached, thereby repositioning the gully again as a death trap to the people of the community and its environs.
Engr. Maduabuchi enumerated some of the visible efforts made so far by the community to curtail the further spread of the gully, including articulating a bill to be sent to the state's House of Assembly through their representative Hon Dr. Okey Okoye; even as he further called for expedited intervention of the state government, to save the people from become refugees in their own town.
The text of the Press Conference reads in part:
"There are also pockets of gully erosion building up at Ula and Eziagulu villages in Ekwulobia. While our various villages are doing a lot in controlling the menace of gully erosion by constructing new catchment pits and de-silting existing ones, we are asking Anambra state govt for expedited intervention, to ensure that Ekwulobia people do not again become refugees in the own town"
On infrastructural challenges, Engr. Maduabuchi called on the government to intervene on the road leading to the Ekwulobia General Hospital which he said was no longer motorable, while also calling on Gov. Obiano to upgrade the hospital to a Specialist Hospital as promised.
He said: "The services offered at the General Hospital Ekwulobia at this time is skeletal at best, and this is further exacerbated by the fact that there is no access road to the hospital.
"The promise from Anambra State govt in the past is that the hospital will be fully built and equipped as a specialist hospital after the general hospitals at Awka and Onitsha have been completed. This promise is yet to fruition.
"Of greater concern is that there is no Eye and Dental services at the hospital and the Doctors residential quarters are in a bad state and therefore not occupied.
"While we thank the govt of Anambra State for recognising Ekwulobia General hospital as one of the hospitals to be upgraded to a specialist hospital in Anambra State, we are pleading with Anambra State govt to give the hospital the desired attention, so that healthcare delivery will be at the doorsteps of Ekwulobia people"
Thanking the state government for awarding the General Hospital road and the Bishop Court Road, the community helmsman further pleaded that expedited actions be taken to complete them, while also urging him to fix the Ihuokpala—Umuchi Agba—Abogwume bypass road and construct the other very critical Abogwume—Umuchiana and Agba Eziagulu — Ula Amalufor bypass roads, to ease the traffic congestion at the ever-busy Ekwulobia Roundabout.
Further appreciating the Governor for appointing some indigenes of Ekwulobia as aides, Engr. pleaded with him to please consider the community any time the vacuum arises for the position a Commissioner, as the community deserves to have a commissioner.
He appealed to him to please extend streetlighting to some other unlighted major roads in the community, and to install facilities, such toilets, fire service gadgets and waste management facilities in the recently completed New Eke Ekwulobia Market, which he said contains over 1700 shops, but has none of these necessities in place, thereby exposing the people living around vicinity to undeserved dangers and hazards.
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