Erosion ruins Oko Poly

Erosion has, over time, dealt deadly blows on the landscape of Oko, the hometown of Nigeria’s former Vice-President, Dr Alex Ekwueme, in Orumba North Local Government Area of Anambra State.

One of the latest sites is the Federal Polytechnic (Fed Poly), Oko, which is at the mercy of deep, very deep, gully erosion.

Staff and students of the polytechnic arrived at their campus one fateful morning only to see that the menace ravaging parts of the town had set its foot on their campus.

Already, a section of the perimeter fence of the polytechnic has been consumed by the gully. Also, a part of the drainage of a new tarred road has caved in, thereby forcing the polytechnic’s management to barricade the road.

Unless urgent action is taken, some structures in the institution may go down soon, especially when the rains return, as the new gully site is close to some structures in the school.

While on a visit to the institution, Daily Sun gathered that the 500-seater main auditorium of the polytechnic, which was at roofing stage before it was abandoned under construction, is located in front of the gully. The structure was said to have been inherited by the incumbent administration of the school.

There was an atmosphere of fear, anxiety and, to some extent, despondency in the school. Some of the students and staff who spoke to our correspondent said they operate in the school every day with their “hearts in their hands.”

Rector of the institution, Dr. Francisca Nwafulugo, told Daily Sun that the gully surfaced in August last year, and it was estimated to be over 20 metres deep.

“The gully is already taking its toll on the polytechnic. It has already washed away part of the perimeter fence of the polytechnic in the area. It has also encroached into the 1.23km road built by the Federal Ministry of Works and commissioned in February 2021.

“Already, the integrity of that road has seriously been undermined and, if nothing is done urgently, the entire road may be washed away when the rains set in,” the rector lamented.

National president of the Federal Polytechnic, Oko, Alumni Association (FPOAA), Henry Nnebe, said the association was saddened by the development.

Nnebe said: “The erosion started when the school moved its activities into the extension site. It was supposed to be the permanent site of the institution but, from the information we gathered, the place has been renamed the ‘Extension Site.’

“When structures started springing up in that area, because of the nature of the soil, the erosion started.

“You can see that there is delayed construction work going on in that place because most of the buildings around that place have been threatened by erosion.

“The 500-seater auditorium, the main auditorium of the polytechnic, is already affected. You could see cracks all over it. And the other buildings by the side of it have been suspended equally.

“There is fear in the air because nobody knows what will happen next. Nobody knows the extent the erosion will go. So, construction activities and the infrastructural development of the area have been stopped.”

On what the alumni association considers to be the cause of the landslide, he blamed it on poor planning and inappropriate channeling of the floodwater, especially by the previous administrators of the polytechnic.

Stressing that there was poor physical planning there, Nnebe argued that, “There should be continuity of putting the right people in the right positions in the planning department or works department.

“In this particular terrain, if you look at the Nanka gully, it is close to it; and this Nanka gully was said to have started in 1850.

“So, people who come here should have the history of the environment they are in to enable them have good planning. In this part of the state, there is a way we check flooding. All the water should not be collected and channeled towards one direction. There can be underground tanks instead of cracking the surface of the soil. If you have a very large underground tank, it can help to alleviate the water problems of the institution. It is possible and doable.”

The alumni also lamented the concentration of almost all the faculties in the main campus in Oko, whereas there are Ufuma and Atani campuses, which they claimed have not been put to the best use.

Since land in Oko is susceptible to erosion and landslides, the alumni said it was inappropriate overcrowding the main campus with all sorts of buildings and also promoting increased human activity; an act which they further argued would keep increasing the pressure on the land.

“When we were in this place in 1987, we were aware that the Schools of Engineering and Agriculture were transferred to Ufuma Campus but, all of a sudden, the School of Engineering was brought back to this place.

“It is not normal the way things are being centralized in Oko. We think, if you have two or three campuses, you set one school or two to one campus. The students should start their OND there and finish their HND there; thereby using that strategy to decongest this place.

“In Atani campus, I think they have Computer Science, while Computer Engineering is in Oko. How do you do that? If you’re saying that the School of Computer should be in Atani, both the engineering and the other aspects of it should be concentrated in one place so that they can help themselves.

“If you want Ufuma to be School of Agriculture, you send everything in agriculture to Ufuma. How can you say that the School of Agriculture is in Ufuma whereas here you find buildings bearing ‘agricultural engineering’?

“If you have created campuses, give them a full-fledged school, decongest this place and stop the unnecessary politicking that is going on here,” the national president stated.

Regardless, the administration of Nwafulugo, said it was already taking steps to reposition the institution.

On the erosion menace, the rector told Daily Sun she had written letters to the relevant government agencies concerning the matter and their responses were still being awaited: “The first point of contact was the Anambra State government, we wrote to the Ministry of Environment. They sent their team of engineers and technical people, who came and assessed the damage, and we are still expecting them to take action.

“We didn’t stop there. We wrote to the ecological unit of the Federal Government. We sent letters to the National Emergency Management Agency, the Federal Ministry of Environment and so many other agencies but we are yet to hear from them.”