The big talks about repairing the preventable losses going on yearly in Mpu and Okpanku – communities in Aninri, Enugu State – don’t just start today. Now that two kids were drowned, with properties and farmlands worth hundreds of millions of naira destroyed in the surging flood that has since sacked hundreds of people in 14 villages since Tuesday, big talks have returned once again.
It begun many years ago, and got far bigger attention in 2012 when the federal government captured Ivo River Dam Project in its budget for a whopping ₦4.5 billion. That time, former Sen. Ike Ekweremadu and Hon Toby Okechukwu were representing constituencies that covered Aninri, but the project was widely believed to be initiated Ekweremadu.
Ivo River Dam Project was designed as a federal agricultural initiative, with multiple objectives to serve as the base of irrigation systems in Aninri and in Ivo local government area in neighbouring Ebonyi State.
It was also envisioned to serve for fishery, local electricity generation, and agro-allied food processing, while also containing the destructive overflows of waters during rainy seasons.
The project was started in 2012, and then abandoned almost immediately. Due to this, the water body became more aggressive, sweeping farther into inner villages and far more frequently, too.
That’s, after 14 years of its approval, Ivo River Dam Project remains largely uncompleted or, in fact, abandoned. In January 2023, the lawmaker representing Ohaozara/Onicha/Ivo federal constituency of Ebonyi state, Hon Makwe Makwe raised the matter again in the House of Representatives.
As he stood to move the motion, Makwe painted vividly to his fellow lawmakers the ugly circumstances the abandoned project has created to the people around it, noting that over 10,000 households were rendered homeless at every instance of the flood, while the water also usually destroyed nearly 70 percent of their livelihood anytime it overflows.
“Since the abandonment, the flood has become a menace and death trap to the hapless farmers, especially during the rainy season, as they resort to using improvised canoes to reach the small farmlands very far away not, covered by the flood, and in the process, some get drowned,” Hon Makwe said.
Although the chamber passed Makwe’s motion and asked the ministry of water resources to make sure Ivo River Dam Project was audited and completed “as a matter urgent national importance”, nothing is done in that regard 44 months after.
Earlier this year, Senator Osita Ngwu who is representing Enugu West district, raised the alarm once again. According to the lawmaker, Ivo River Dam Project was a painful reminder of what appeared like systematic marginalisation as he repeated that it was lack of funding which has kept the project.
“This is to remind you of my letter dated 8th September, 2023 and to express concerns that despite our appeals for the completion of the Ivo and Mgbowo River dams in Enugu State, there appears to be a systematic abandonment of these critical projects,” Ngwu said.
As it stands, nobody knows who to blame about Ivo River Dam Project. And finding who to blame is not even ideal at the moment the havocs are coming with unimaginable, far-reaching consequences, including losses of human lives.
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Frankly, it would be far more cheaper for everyone if the government do the dam than having to constantly send its agencies on emergency runs to take records of dead bodies floating anytime Ivo floods come. While Mpu and Okpanku communities appreciate reliefs from the government, I think they would appreciate far more quick and permanent solutions to this menace. And the people know that its their representatives who must lead the way.