By PAMELA EBOH, Awka

Anambra State government under the leadership of Prof Chukwuma Soludo has declared its plans to demolish some houses around the Trans-Nkisi area of Onitsha, because of its encroachment of the Nkisi River.

Making the declaration during a press conference in Awka on Wednesday the State Commissioner for Works, Arc. Okey Ezeobi said the Anambra State government discovered that some home owners in the area bought land, then took time to sand fill a part of the Nkisi River to expand their property, thereby constricting the size of the river, leading to water pressure.

He said: “We have visited Nkisi River and seen what developers are doing there, and it is unacceptable. We will pull down some buildings there for the river to take its natural cause.

“When I see some of the beautiful buildings in the area, I shed tears for the owners because I’m sure they will be demolished.

“We will demolish those buildings around the river where people reclaimed land, build on it and shrink the waterways, which causes flooding and other problems.

“There is a particular hotel in that area, very beautiful place, painted white. I think it’s a three storey hotel. I think it’s standing in the middle of the river. It will have to go, even though I feel bad for the owner.”

Reacting to the recent trend of creating video content with failed spots on Anambra roads, the Commissioner insisted that while some are done with good intentions to draw the attention of the government, others are with mischievous intent, to spite the government.

He added: “I know there are genuine people who do videos, but there are others I call politically motivated content creators.

There was one who went to a federal government road being constructed by Craneburg, which is four kilometer road from Anambra and Imo. It’s a Federal government road, two kilometers in Imo and two in Anambra, all by the same company.

“But the content creator was trying to deceive people that the road on the Imo flank was well done, while the one in Anambra by Soludo was cheap. But he didn’t know they were both same road and quality by came company.

“We don’t give contacts to fake companies, or wheel barrow contractors as people say. We take time to award our contracts and the companies are very rooted. We use Geld, AG Vision, Benejaf and other well known companies. You can Google them.

“Like AG Vision is an A-rated organisation that worked for Ngige then and others. It is because these companies are big, that is why they always go back to attend to failures. These companies are big and they are one of the best and we take time to search contractors.

“The failed portions you see on some roads is not because of substandard works, but effect of natural disaster. NIMET warned Anambra early this year that there will be high volume of flooding, rainfall and volume of precipitation per minute. We did not ask ourselves where those floods go to?

“But if you check it is not peculiar to Anambra, even federal government roads experience them. We are not absolving the contractors in totality because there are possibilities of one of two human errors, but not because the government is engaging poor contractors or bidding for shoddy jobs.”