Anambra State Governor Prof. Chukwuma Soludo has described environmental degradation and flooding as the state’s gravest existential threat, saying roughly 98 per cent of the damage is man-made.
At a media engagement marking Anambra’s 35th anniversary, Soludo said more than 30 per cent of the state’s landmass had already been compromised, a figure that, in his words, cements Anambra’s unhappy reputation as Africa’s gully erosion capital. Blocked drains, illegal building on waterways and reckless excavation have, he said, changed the soil’s natural porosity and made the land far more vulnerable.
He warned that gully erosion is shrinking the state’s land area faster than public finances can keep up. Government cannot, he argued, keep treating the crisis as a problem it must patch after the fact. What is needed is a community-led approach that draws in local institutions, churches and other stakeholders, not a purely official, reactive response.
Residents, he added, should ask themselves what kind of Anambra they intend to leave their children. The governor then unveiled the Anambra Clean and Green Initiative, a broad environmental programme built on four pillars: Green, Clean, Planned and Sustainable.
Protection of the environment, Soludo stressed, is not the job of government alone. He urged people to plant trees as a practical way to repair the ecosystem and improve air quality.
“The scale of this crisis is more than what government alone can solve; we must collectivise the responsibility,” he said as he formally launched the statewide green drive.
