The governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, said that the government has spent over $150 million on erosion and flood control over the last ten years.
This, he said to reaffirm the government’s commitment to environmental protection and improved living conditions for the people of Edo.
In his words; “Over the last 10 years, we have spent over 150 million dollars trying to repair what we have damaged ourselves. We should ask ourselves if this is the way we should continue to go. Can we not prevent some of these things that are leading to environmental challenges we are faced with?”
He bemoaned the fact that the majority of the environmental issues the state was facing were caused by humans, but he also noted that the government was making important strides toward creating a progressive, prosperous state that is resilient to climate change and is based on sustainable environmental development and a circular economy.
The governor said; “Majority of the cases are all man-made. You have a contractor, who was given a contract, and he decides to begin construction, but he doesn’t share the plan, and he doesn’t tell how the water will be terminated.
“He does his own, collects his money and leaves the problem with the communities. That is a major cause of the problem we are having with erosion control.”
He stressed the need for people to change the way they lived in the past, saying: “The way we have lived in the last 20 years or more, I don’t think we should continue that way; we behave as if our environment does not matter, and nobody cares about land management.
“Communities sell and do not care about planning. People build where they should not and the water that should flow through a natural path does not have a way to go and goes where it shouldn’t and begins to wash away the land. As a government, this has become our priority.”
Obaseki said this in a speech delivered during the inauguration of the Edo State Flood, Erosion, and Watershed Management Agency, a new organization created by the state government to continue the improvements in erosion control and flood management made as part of the Edo State Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project, which was funded by the World Bank.
Obaseki warned that the Niger Delta Development Commission and other agencies planning to build roads in the state must first register their designs with the Edo FEWMA in order to ensure proper engineering design and erosion control mechanisms.
He listed some crucial steps the government must take in order to maintain gains made in the management and control of flood and erosion.
