The member representing Ikwuano/Umuahia federal constituency of Abia State at the House of Representatives, Hon Sam Onuigbo, has lamented the worsening gully erosion menace in umunwanwa area of the Umuahia south local government area, adding that the menace has continued to pose serious harm on the lives and properties of people residing in the affected area.
The federal lawmaker made his feelings known during interactive session with the house of representatives committee on Petroleum upstream on the state of Nigeria’s oil and gas industry with the Group Managing Director(GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr. Mele Kolo Kyari present.
It was contained in a release issued to newsmen in Umuahia, the Abia capital on Wednesday.
Onuigbo frowned in a strong term, the delay of the NNPC on the checking of the gully erosion in the Abia community and regretted that the nation’s petroleum corporation had done nothing to control the natural disasters which had devastated many properties in the affected community, despite several motions he moved on the floor of the eighth and ninth Assembly together with the resolutions of the house mandating the corporation and Pipeline and Products Marketing Company (PPMC) to take urgent action to prevent any calamity that occurs in the area due to exposed pipeline on site.
He reminded the NNPC that the destructive effects of the erosion in the community are threatening lives, property and economic activities in the area coupled with the danger of PPMC pipeline passing through the affected community precariously exposed by the erosion, leaving it open to explosion at the slightest of impacts.
Onuigbo reiterated the call on the federal government of Nigeria to take immediate actions to prevent the disaster waiting to happen from the exposed pipelines in umunwanwa part of umuahia south local area, grieving that the community has been devastated by severe erosion menace.
According to the national assembly member”, I have been seeking all sorts of intervention including some palliative works from Anambra/Imo River Basin Authority. I have also paid for the survey plan and engineering works that were done for that site and submitted to Ecological Fund Office.
Rep Onuigbo who recalled with regret the ugly petroleum pipeline explosion that resulted in the deaths of about 250 people in Osisioma Ngwa local government area of Abia state in 2018 and further regretted that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation exhibited simliar dangerous signals which were brought to the attention of the federal government and the corporation or subsidiary (PPMC) as such warning alerts and several calls to act to prevent the deadly incident that happened were ignored or neglected.
He also posited that the affected community (Umunwanwa) in Umuahia south LGA is sitting on a literal keg of gun powder an except the federal government immediately takes measures to defuse the menace, the looming mass death of those Nigerian citizens might as well be equated tons government -sanctioned execution.
Responding to the federal lawmaker’s outcry over the delay on the checking of the gully erosion menace in Abia community, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mr Mele Kolo Kyari, promised to look into the challenges so as to avoid human and economic loss in the area.
He, however, reiterated the unwavering commitments of the nation’s petroleum corporation towards enhancing and complementing the efforts of the current administration in the country to deliver basic economic and Infrastructural amenities to the doorsteps of the citizens.