The formation of gullies has become one of the greatest environmental disasters facing many towns and villages in southeastern Nigeria. This region is fast becoming hazardous for human habitation. Three months ago Southeast governors demanded the imposition of a state of emergency as a necessary step towards checking the erosion menace in the region.
Hundreds of people are directly affected every year within towns and villages and have to be re-located, and yet the rate of increase in gully erosion has continued unabated with no suitable solution.
The economic cost of gully erosion in southeastern Nigeria is devastating. Gully erosions lead to great losses of land every year. Large sections of land have been destroyed in recent years in towns such as Ekwulobia and Nanka. In addition, highways are ruined due to gullies, leading to numerous vehicle accidents and deaths.
The government has done little to curb this menace. Although some gullies are initiated by natural cracks in the earth, most gully erosions in the southeast regions of Nigeria are unnatural and can be averted. Most of the causes of erosions are traceable to bad management practices such as roads without proper drainage or catchments pits; Unguided cultivations that cause flooding; Indiscriminate channeling of flood water etc. There has been a clarion call for funding of huge engineering projects to curb the erosion menace.
However, small scale activities that require low technology input can be undertaken. Immediate control measures that should be encouraged and practiced include: Reduction of surface runoff from impervious surfaces; Drainage of surface runoff – this will include the establishment of interception, division and primary (trunk) drains and the construction of interception ponds; Planting of grasses on available favorable surfaces to reduce the amount of bare soils exposed to the erosive force of the rains, and to control infiltration; Afforestation in the areas more susceptible to gully formation; and planting of local cover crops such as indigenous leguminous plants.
In the words of John Wooden, the community should not allow what it cannot do to interfere with what it can do: Engage small scale, low technology and best land management practices while waiting for huge government and international support.
PS. The BBC has a link to a slideshow story of the gully erosion problem in Imo state: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/trust/whatwedo/where/africa/nigeria/2009/01/090127_nekede_erosion_slideshow.shtml?g0=4#imagegallery0