The University town of Ihiagwa, the host community of Federal University of Technology, Owerri, FUTO, has been cut off from the other parts of the state. No thanks to the devastating erosion menace ravaging the environment.
The road leading to the town from the Obinze axis and shortly after the FUTO has collapsed, severed into two and made impassable by erosion menace.
A community leader and President Ihiagwa Town Management Committee Engr Emeka Udokporo has raised alarm and cried to the government of Emeka Ihedioha to save his people from the challenges of the collapsed Ihiagwa-FUTO road.
Udokporo raised alarm over the plight of his people amidst concern and anxiety of residents while appealing to the government to provide an urgent palliative measure to connect his people back with the rest of the state.
According to him, ‘now that the bridge linking our Ihiagwa community to Obinze has collapsed and with the deplorable state of Nekede/ Ihiagwa road, our community is completely cut off from other parts of the state’’
Continuing, he stated that, ‘vehicles coming to Ihiagwa through the Nekede-Ihiagwa road have since ceased using the route diverting to the Obinze-FUTO-Ihiagwa route. Now that the bridge linking the roads has collapsed they have no alternative’’
In an emotion laden voice he lamented the deplorable situation the community is grappling with attributing it to long years of neglect by the past governments, notwithstanding that they have regularly called attention to the bad road.
He however, expressed confidence that the Imo governor will hearken to his cry to save his people. Pleading with the governor, he said, ‘we plead with you to urgently come to our rescue and save us from the harrowing experience that we are going through, including the effect of dredging activities and the heavy trucks plying our roads’’
The once sleeping town of Ihiagwa has metamorphosed into an urban community what with the presence of the University as it plays hosts to strangers including University workers and students. The impact of increasing population and vehicular movement is sure to affect a rickety bridge its construction did never envisage changing environment.
The effect of continuous down pour within and around Owerri in the past one week was said to have aided the collapse of the already weakened bridge. Economic activities and especially educational activities of the students within the area appears the worst hit as narrated by a student who simply gave his name as Nnamdi and who resides in the area.
The government it would be recalled have pencilled this road as one of those to be given attention in the first phase of its road construction agenda.
