There are moments when nature doesn’t just warn — it screams.
Drive through parts of Anambra, Abia, or Imo after a heavy downpour, and you’ll see what looks like the earth mourning — yawning gullies swallowing homes, farmlands, and schools. This isn’t erosion anymore; it’s a slow-motion apocalypse.
According to verified reports from the World Bank-assisted NEWMAP project, there are over 3,000 active gully erosion sites across the South East. Some have eaten entire farmlands, displaced families, and cut off communities from access roads. In Nanka, Anambra State — and more recently in Ekwusigo, Ozubulu, the earth now collapses like paper under rain, swallowing everything in its path. What used to be farmland is now a bottomless wound that keeps widening with every storm.
But here’s the real tragedy: the problem isn’t ignorance. It’s political deafness.
Erosion doesn’t trend like insecurity or oil politics, so Abuja looks away. If these same gullies were in Lagos or Kano, the story would be different. There would be emergency sessions, presidential visits, and ecological interventions overnight. But in the South East, erosion is treated like an unfortunate inheritance, not a national disaster.
The Ecological Fund Office in Abuja manages billions meant for situations like this. Yet, less than 10% of that money finds its way to erosion-stricken southeastern states. The rest disappears into “politically aligned” projects — another symptom of the disease eating Nigeria from within.
I remember visiting Ekwulobia some years ago. A school block stood half-suspended — the earth beneath it eaten away. Children played nearby, as if danger had become normal. One boy looked up at me and said, “Sir, our ground is sick.” That simple truth captures it all — our ground is sick, and our politics is sicker.
The call for a State of Emergency on Erosion in the South East isn’t a cry for pity; it’s a demand for justice. It’s time to establish a South East Environmental Protection and Stabilisation Commission — a regional body with authority, transparency, and funding to rescue our land before it disappears beneath our feet.
But unity is the missing piece.
Until the five governors of the South East speak with one voice — not five divided whispers — Abuja will keep pretending not to hear.
Because when the land goes, everything goes — our farms, our homes, our heritage, our history.
So, I ask: How many more villages must vanish before we act?
The ground is shifting. Who will stand before we all fall?
—
Linus Anagboso
( D-BIG PEN)
Digital Solutions Consultant · Columnist · Strategic Community Advocate
