Residents lament as Uyo descends in status

Uyo, the capital city of Akwa Ibom State, has come under scrutiny from Nigerians. Is Uyo still worth being described as a city, considering the environmental and undeveloped streets taking over 85 per cent of the city landscape? ETIM EKPIMAH writes

Uyo is descending, descending to filth, chaos, planless streets, with almost 85 per cent of the villages forming the Uyo Capital Development Territory unplanned. There is no definite place marked for streets. When it rains, used sachets and other waste flood ferociously into people’s homes and shops.

The recent one, which happened at Urua Ekpa Road, testifies to the planless nature of Uyo’s inner streets and homes. Streets are not laid; people build houses here, there, and everywhere, thus blocking waterways that empty themselves into the streets, as there is no channel for the water to go through.

The Urua Ekpa’s scenario was a matter that struck everyone’s imagination. The gutter being constructed is beneath the street. As the ongoing construction work was in effect, residents were bewildered when they saw the street flooded. It was then that they noticed that the construction company had not created more room for the gutter to channel the water away when it rained. They saw houses, shops, and streets flooded as they were scooping water from their business premises and houses.

The University of Uyo Town Campus and Annexe are not exempt. The Ikpa Road that passes through the university has not been upgraded to a standard street. About the road, that is, Ikpa Road, separating the Town Campus and Annexe, there’s a dumpsite lying opposite the university’s gate. Refuse is not poured inside the container; they are thrown on the ground to degrade the environment.

The filth, unpaved and untarred streets, even those that are not recognised as streets, dot the Uyo landscape. As small as Uyo is, it lacks the features of a city, not to mention a megacity status it is bragging about.

Walking around Uyo, our correspondent observed that John Udo Akpan; Michael Udofia Street; Word Bride Avenue, Off School Road, and sundry others make Uyo look like a village. There is nothing to be cheerful about in Uyo, even from a distance.

Barely two years since Umo Eno, PhD, assumed office as the Akwa Ibom State governor, Uyo residents have been lamenting the poor state of the city, with improper sanitation, moribund infrastructure like the Ibom Plaza, Science Park, pot-hole filled roads, dilapidated roads, and a host of others. And if a driver is going to Uyo through Ibom Hotel, and he is not very watchful, his car may run into a ditch just beside the entrance to the hotel.

Further, walking through the city, one often notices that the gutters are not desilted, leaving specks of dirt to pile in trenches. The low-lying streets, which are filled with leaves and debris, create stagnant water for mosquitoes to breed. Dirt is disposed of indiscriminately, with some being dumped by the side of the gutters, while others are dumped in small bushes around the areas.

Uyo is not the only city located on/around the tableland; other cities in the world share the same feature as Uyo, yet they are kept clean. Many cities and towns in Australia are located on or around tablelands. Some of these cities and towns, mostly in Australia, are located on tablelands. The cities are Atherton, Mareeba, Herberton, and Kuranda; Malankda, Millaa Millaa, Tinaroo, and Tolga, Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, are also situated on a tableland. So, a city situated on the tableland does not mean that such a city must always be prone to flooding. Some measures can be put in place to curb the incidence of flooding, just as in other areas.

A resident of Uyo, Mr Aniekan Uwa, told our correspondent that he never believed Uyo could be so dirty when walking through some of its streets. He stated that the streets are not paved, and many suburbs are deprived of anything in the semblance of streets. He added that houses are built with one in front of the other, with no space to park a car.

According to Uwa, apart from the area yet to be developed, Uyo was the scintillating, alluring, and captivating capital of Akwa Ibom State, especially during the administrations of Godswill Akpabio and Udom Emmanuel. The two governors focused on how to make Uyo better, with no single pothole on roads around the city; the transformation was not only in the capital, Uyo, but it swept across the entire state.

Mentioning the two governors never meant that the sage, the forebearer, and planner of Akwa Ibom State, Obong Victor Attah, did not achieve much with the little revenue that accrued to him as the governor would be wrong. Attah built Le Meridien and Golf Resort (as Ibom Hotel was then called), built the Victor Attah International Airport, Ibom Power Plant, and paid part of the counter funding for Ibaka Deepsea Port. It was only left for Senator Godswill Akpabio to pay the remaining counterpart funding before he (Akpabio) began tinkering with the relocation of the seaport away from the Oro ethnic nationality. What happened then serves as a lesson for everyone in the state to learn. Hatred destroys a society, but peace and brotherly love bring progress to a nation and the country.

Uwa said, “Akpabio can himself testify to the love the people of the state showed him by solidly standing on his side when the Senator representing Kogi Central Senatorial District, Natasha Akpoti, accused him of sexual harassment. Everyone in the state spoke against Akpoti and defended Akpabio on all fronts. Nobody knew Annang, Ibibio, or Oro then; what everyone was interested in was Akpabio as our own, our beloved former governor. Thank God, everyone now sees that what the woman wanted is to bring Akpabio down so that the North could get to Tinubu for a possible impeachment.”

Another Akwa Ibom State indigene, who lives in Uyo, Nelson Etuk, believes Akwa Ibom can be better. He revealed that Governor Umo Eno is doing great. He added that the governor’s focus is on rural areas and human empowerment, and development. Etuk noted that most rural communities in the state did not have access roads until Eno started fixing them after he became the governor. He added that development in rural areas is not an excuse that Eno is not doing anything in Uyo.

Etuk said the Akwa Ibom State government has many ongoing projects in Uyo. He noted that the projects include road construction and erosion control, which include the construction of Ndiya Street’s internal roads, drainage, and solar lighting in Akpan Andem Market. “Further, the state is working on reclaiming and redeveloping a gully erosion site in Uyo, which will be transformed into a tourist attraction. Governor Umo Eno has also been actively inspecting government projects and facilities in Uyo to ensure they align with his administration’s vision,” he said.

Dean, Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Uyo, Professor Anthony Ujene, blamed Nigerians for drinking sachet and plastic/bottle water and discarding the containers wherever they like. The professor saw this as a systemic failure, adding that the government has not provided enough waste bins where the waste can be discarded.

Ujene stated that governments all over Nigeria have not yet implemented environmental law, as Nigerians behave the same way in every city concerning environmental matter.

He said: “We keep drinking sachet water, throwing away the sachet without knowing where the waste is going. The government, too, does not provide a wastebasket where people will drop their waste. The government has no monitoring mechanism to check where waste is being dumped. There are places where you don’t drop common things like a sweet pack on the road, and if you do, somebody will ask you to pick it up at once. As humans, we have our problems.

“There is a state agency which is in charge of all these disposals. Sometimes you see them opening all these gutters without covering them. The filth, like sachets, polythene bags, papers, or other wastes, will go into the drain, and the drain will get blocked: this usually results in flooding. The water is meant to be flowing freely through the drains. Things like plastic/bottles and sachets dumped indiscriminately go into the drains and block the water from running freely.

“This concerns policy implementation and enforcement. There is no penalty for those who dump refuse anywhere they like. It is a national problem, both to the government and the governed.

“If you go to any universities, you will see projects on environmental topics fill the shelves, but the government does not feel impelled to execute anyone of them. Here, we are not the people to implement or enforce these things; our duty is to teach them.

The Commissioner for Works, Prof Eno Ibanga, said no city can attain the full development process at a stretch. He added that all other cities around the world underwent gradual development until they are fully developed.

He mentioned that the Akwa Ibom State government is still doing everything possible to ensure that most of these streets or areas are developed soon.

He said, “Developing a city is a gradual process. No city has been built at once, and at the time, we shall shift attention from the major work we are doing to fix these streets and some minor roads soon.”