OVER 20 communities in Awgu and Oji-River Local Government Areas of
Enugu State have been thrown into serious difficulties, following a
major landslide which cut off a portion of the Awgu-Achi-Oji River
federal road.
The landslide on the road now under rehabilitation, reportedly
occurred at Egu-Agbo Ifitte Mmaku end last Friday after a heavy
rainfall.
The rehabilitation project was awarded by the Federal Government last
year as a constituency project of the Deputy Senate President, Chief
Ike Ekweremadu, and work had progressed steadily before the unfortunate
disaster which has rendered the road impassable.
A farmer at Mmaku, Mrs. Nwamaka Ekwe, told reporters who visited the
area yesterday that the incident was like an earthquake, lamenting that
economic activities in the area had been paralyzed by the disaster.
She
said: “We have not experienced this type of disaster in this area
before. The thing is just like an earthquake and it is very risky for
anyone to attempt passing there. We have not been going to market
because the road has been cut into two.”
The middle-aged woman urged government to urgently intervene by
repairing the damaged portion of the road, expressing fears that the
situation could worsen with more rainfall.
Also reacting, Mr. Sunday Chukwuobasi, a commercial motorcycle rider
from Mmaku, said: “We are not happy about what happened to our road. For
long, the people in government have been promising to construct a new
road for us but nothing has happened all
these years until the recent intervention by the deputy senate president.
“The government should urgently come to our aid and alleviate our
suffering. Since the day this thing happened nobody could pass through
here.
Movement has been hampered and the rural women are suffering because
they cannot go to the market. Last Oye market, which was a day after
this happened, so many people cried at the market because there was no
way to transport their goods to the market.”
Source
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