Enugu’s “most neglected community” begs for access road, bridge

The people of Igboneme community, a suburb of Ezimo town in Udenu Local Government Area of Enugu State, have called on the governments and agencies to come to their rescue by constructing a bridge linking them with the rest of the community.

They said that the call became necessary because of the bad and impassable state of the road in the community, which links them to other parts of the area, insisting that the road had been badly neglected by governments and their agencies at all levels.

The people claimed that the community had suffered gross neglect and has been cut off from the rest of the state by gully erosion for over 100 years.

SouthEast Trust checks show that the suburb houses hundreds of people, mainly agrarian, and had been cut off from the entire Ezimo town on the southern part by gully erosion for decades, while its access road on the northern part had become inaccessible.

A leader in the community, who spoke under the umbrella of the Igboneme Progressives, Dr. Paulinus Mbah, said that while the residents of the area endured their being cut off from the entire community for decades by the age-long erosion, their only connecting road network to the outside world had become inaccessible, hence their demand for urgent attention.

Also, an administrator and native of the area, Dr. Mbah, told South East Trust : “There is a road network across Igboneme that goes to Ibagwa Ezimo, and the other end goes to ObolloAfor, headquarters of Udenu Local Government Area. It spans about four kilometres. The Ibagwa end had been tarred through the magnanimity of

Enugu State Governor, Chief Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi under his Udenu link road scheme.

“Now, the by-pass between Ibagwa Ezimo through Igboneme to Obollo is where we have a big challenge. The local government graded down to Oturkpo-Ama-Ogbelle junction, less than a kilometre to our area and didn’t continue. Today, accessing our side of the road has become impossible.

``We appeal to Udenu LGA, Enugu State government and indeed the federal government to come to our rescue. I call it very urgent because the other side of our suburb, linking us with Ezimo-Uno, is cut off for over 100 years by gully erosion.”

However, when contacted, the chairman of Udenu Local Government Area, Solomon Onah said the council was now engaged with how to solve the COVID-19 pandemic and not how to fix a rural road and bridge.