Mgbo Nnachi, Yenagoa
To say that Ogbogoro Community situated along the Ikoli River in Yenagoa Local Government Area of Bayelsa State
have known no peace, neither slept with two eyes closed is a lie from the pit of hell. The residents along Ikoli Creek; Famgbe, Ogbogoro, Akaba, Ikoli, and Ogu, to name a few have witnessed erosion gulping their ancestral homes without succor in sight.
The Ikoli River has developed an appetite for consuming houses in Ogbogoro community. The appetite is occasioned by gully erosion, which has seen the shores of the river washed away, causing houses along the riverbank to tumble into the water.
Forthnights ago, there was a palpable tension in Obogoro community, as the residents open their eyes with sounds of landslides, earth tremor and finally a sack from their homes, as the watch helplessly the sea gulp their hard earned sweat. What a loss!
Scores of residents have abandoned their homes no thanks to a ravaging coastal erosion in the area, that is gradually pushing them to the brink of extinction.
The rampaging natural phenomenon has encroached on buildings such as houses, Corners Lodge, churches, schools and school fields.
The water from the Epie Creek shows no mercy as it submerges everything within its way, eating deep into the community.
With many persons already displaced, the people have over the years cried out for help from the state and federal authorities without getting any positive response. Abandoned to their fate, they are now leaving their homes in droves, seeking shelter and refuge outside Ogbogoro community.
The residents have attributed the cause of the erosion to illegal dredging operations along Ikoli Creek. Recently the concerned landlords wrote save our soil letter to several authorities, seeking for stoppage of the mining and dredging activities, but they played deaf eyes.
The letter reads, "we write to formally lodge our complain to your office to
investigate and call to order the harmful sand mining operations in the
Obogoro axis of the Nun River.
''The activities of the sand dredgers escalate the already experienced
erosion that grievously threatens our properties (buildings). We have made
several efforts to call the attentions of the sand miners and owners of the
dredgers
Mr. Blankson Osomokume, Mr. Ikechukwu Paulson
Ogbotobo and Engineer Ekpe to the negative impacts of their activities on
our land and properties (buildings), but have sadly fallen on deaf ears.
''We do not intend to recourse to violence as a means of resolving the
daring challenge.
When our correspondents visited the erosion sites the residents lamented, that the federal and state governments have not been fair to them.
Numo Olali in his reaction said, "this is just the beginning of greater submerging in that territory. When we kicked against the dredging going on in that area people were shutting us. If the dredging going on in that area is not stopped in the next 15years, the whole of these community will be history. We can't pressure nature like that, it will definitely ask for it one day. God please help them."
Eru Godwin said, these are some of the roles that Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC is supposed to take over but instead, the commission has been looted dry by her supposed leaders and friends."
Keme Nengi said, "We shouldn't create problems and wait on NDDC to come and remedy it. If dredging is the cause, the solution is to stop the dredging activities there."
Godsfwill Eko said, "is a worrisome situation, that a community in Bayelsa State, an oil producing state, with allocation from the federal government cannot secure the life and property of his people, to the very point of people relocating. God have mercy."
Goodluck Ekpo said, "for many years now, this has been happening ,the dredger on sight, who allows it .who is collecting fees from it . they should stop the illegal dredging. Who will help this community? This is part of the unacceptable failure of NDDC."
The erosion occasioned by illegal dredging activities has affected the economic life of residents of the area, whose desperate letters of appeal to the government have so far yielded no result.
While lamenting about the situation, the paramount ruler of the community, HRH Monday Igodo said, “Right now, our primary school is seriously affected.
The riverbanks are eroding and eroding very fast. The Corpers’ lodge that was very far from the bank of the river is now affected, forcing us to abandon it.
“Well, some of these environmental problems are natural while some are man-made. Ours is a natural occurrence.
“It has been there and we have written to many people, even to the Federal Government to come to our aid over this erosion issue but nothing has been done.
We are like a people who live in water but are forced to use our saliva to have our bath daily,”
The monarch also complained about the lack of electricity in the community for months.
“We can see electricity from across the bridge where Government House is located but we have not had it in two years,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Bayelsa State government has condemned the activities of sand dredgers in the state for carrying out their operations without a recourse to Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).
The Governor Senator Douye Diri who recently signed three bills into law as part of his administration's effort to promote good governance and enhance revenue generation, signed into law are the Bayelsa State Audit Bill, Information Technology Development Agency Bill and the Regulation of Sand Dealing, Dredging and Reclamation Operations Bill 2020.
Governor Diri, condemned the activities of sand dredgers in the state for carrying out their operations without a recourse to Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).
He said, the activities of sand dredgers had become worrisome as they were partly responsible for most of the natural disasters in some communities.
Diri said, "We cannot have people dredging sand without an EIA. Nobody talks about the impact such activities cause our environment.
"This is something that has been bothering me and I didn't know that the Assembly was already working on it to address the problem.
"A lot of natural disasters all over the place are traceable to some of these acts that we ignore. I am happy that I have assented to this bill to control dredging activities so that we do not plunge our state into further issues of degradation."
The secretary of the community’s council of chiefs, Chief Unenadu Igwele also said, the erosion has been our problem for over two decades.
‘The flood came gradually, starting from the Famgbe end.
‘It has eaten deep into Famgbe and driven that community into the swamps,” he said.
“And that is what is going to happen to us if nothing is done about the erosion.
“Unfortunately, in our own case, we don’t even have where to move to. Everywhere is occupied now.”
Mrs Patience Amagbopere, the women leader of the community said, the erosion has changed the way the community looks.
“When I was newly married into this community, walking from the waterside to the schoolhouse was a long distance.
‘But now, you can see everything here, even the goal post is being shifted again and again towards the school as other parts of the facility have gone into the river,” she said.
“We want to appeal, as a people, people of Bayelsa and as a mother, I don’t have any other faith.
“I am begging, pleading and crying, that the state government, even the Federal Government, should look into our plight.
“After this time, our children would not be able to attend school here because we are afraid that most of them don’t know how to swim.”
Her worry is that children walking down the eroded paths might fall into the river and drown.
It is a legitimate concern with the erosion quickly degrading the soil and causing chunks of the community to fall into the river.
“Aside from this, we have also lost large parts of our farmland to the erosion."
Worried by this heinous act, Bayelsa state House of Assembly resolved to
call an the Ministries of Environment, Transport, Works and infrastructure
and the Bayelsa State Environmental Sanitation Authority to ensure that all
indiscriminate and illegal sand dredging activities along the Obogoro stopped.
They frowned at the indiscriminate and illegal sand mining and dredging at the Obogoro axis of River Nun and Ikolo river, as the undermind potential danger to both aquatic lives and the coastal communities.
The motion which was presented by Hon. Monday Bubou Obolo, Leader of the House, representing Southern Ijaw Constituency 2, seeks the support of the House to curtail and regulate the activities of the miners.
According to him, the unlawful activities of the miners pose potential danger, as it could result in severe erosion of coastal communities.
He said, ''perennial mining and dredging could potentially have adverse effect on marine vegetation thereby resulting in environmental degradation.
Even as these activities are self-service rather than for the good of the generality of Bayelsans, the motion was not intended to remove food from the mouth of the miners and dredgers, but to guide and regulate the enterprises, with a view to ensuring legislative backing.''
While responding to the motion, Hon. Mitema Obordor said, ''the motion was not intended to witch hunt or remove food from anyone's mouth, but to instill some level of sanity and decorum so as to avoid unpleasant consequences of indiscriminate mining and dredging.
''It is enough that government tries to curtail natural causes of erosion, but that allowing human economic activities to add to it would be counter productive to the needs of safety in our environment.''
Obolo averred that, regulating the activities of sand miners and dredgers would inject decency into the sector, as much as it would endure shore protection of all communities along the Nun river.
Other Members of the House lend their voices to the timely and apt call for the regulation of the illegal miners and dredgers with a view to ensuring sanity and safety of the coastal towns and villages.
This followed a call on the Ministry of Environment and all related departments and agencies to stop the indiscriminate and illegal sand mining and dredging along the Obogoro axis of river Nun and as well as the Ikoli river.
After one year, the bill has just been signed by the Governor.
His Royal Majesty, Sir Godwin Igodo, the Ogbotom Edede VII, Ebeni-Atissa Kingdom in his reaction, made a passionate appeal to the Federal Ministry of Environment, agencies and other well meaning organisations to join efforts at combating the menace.
King Igodo said though the erosion is a natural thing, but it has increased to unimaginable point, the primary school field and Corpers lodge are gone, the dredging activities have also increased our suffering.
"This erosion is a natural something, its a yearly occurrence, it happens every year particularly the flood time. That is when the river banks starts to erode.
"But it is worst now, in the past it was not so, this place you are seeing was very far from the water front. If it was so near we wouldn't have put our primary school there, now probably we don't have land where we can put the school.
"That have been our problem, where to relocate the school, we don't have lands, so we decided to keep it there and decided to pray to God, whether we will see some change.
" It is the flood that causes the erosion.
During the flood season, the bush is surrounded by water, and the water has to drain out, not so? The water has to look for how to run to the ocean.
"That is a technical something, an individual cannot do it, it's only the federal government that can do it.
"There are so many communities that were having such problems, federal government warded in and solved their problems. The town called Otuokpoti, it was being eroded regularly every year, until the federal government came and stopped it. Its only government that can do it, an individual cannot do it.
"We have been talking to government, even the state government is away. We want them to come and start doing something. Nobody is listening to us, maybe because its a small community, but its not.
"Erosion has taken a major part of our town; our land has vanished; you know this is part of Yenagoa, and we cannot let go our land to dredging activities”
King Igodo called on the Federal Government to come to the community’s aid by building shoreline embankment in addition to sand-filling the affected areas."
Now that the state governor has assented to the bill to regulate dredging activities in the state, it behoves the authorities involved to save the communities ancestral lands.
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