‘Save our lives and community please’

Persistent sea incursion destroys property, leaves hundreds homeless in Ondo coastal communities 

AFTER 28 days of the last sea surge, which endangered lives and destroyed property worth millions of naira in Aiyetoro Community, Ilaje Local Council of Ondo State, a deadlier incursion has ravaged the entire coastal line of the riverine area.

The affected communities, which made Ondo State fifth among the nine oil producing states of the nation, include Araromi, Oke Zioni, Ori Oke Iwa Mimo, Gbabijo, Ugbanre, Abetogho, Erunna, Idi-Ogba, Ile Pete, Awoye, Ikorigho, Oghoye, Abereke, Ogogoro and Aiyetoro.

For the umpteenth time, the coastal communities in the South Senatorial district of the state, stretching from the Araromi waterside boundary of the state to Ogun State in the West and close to 100 kilometres up the communities around Benin River in the East, along Delta State, have been submerged.

According to an eyewitness, Emmanuel Aralu, the incursion occurred last Monday afternoon around 4:15 pm after a heavy rain and it lasted till yesterday morning.
Aralu stated that the havoc caused by the ecological and natural disaster was much more devastating than the first one of September 1 that was engendered by only five and a half hours downpour.

An elder in the community, Lawrence Lemamu, decried the abandonment of the community to the mercy of ecological disaster, which he said had wiped away more than 3 kilometres of their land and threatened their existence as a people.
“Is it until we all perish in the sea and all our hard earned properties and precious ones are washed away that government at all levels will come to our rescue?”
“We urge the government to quickly save us, save our civilisation, save our generation, save our land, the land which our fathers gave us more than 68 years ago,” Lemamu pleaded.

The community, which was established on January 12, 1947 and the only one in Nigeria renowned for its communism and theocratic system of government, pleaded to the Federal Government to give them the first dividend of democracy by solving the embankment project.

Lemamu disclosed that the theocratic community, since its establishment, has not enjoyed any benefits from the state government. He said their power project in 1953 and the roads in the community were achieved through communal efforts.
“We anxiously await the fruits of the pressure which the state government promised it will mount on the Federal Government for a thorough work on the embankment projects awarded by the NDDC,” he said.

The indigenes appreciated the state government and its twin delegations led by the Commissioner for Environment, Sola Ebiseni and the OSOPADEC chairman, Johnson Ogunyemi at different times respectively for the distribution of relief materials to the victims.
For the records, Ebiseni and Ogunyemi visited Aiyetoro and the submerged schools were relocated to new sites so that the students, both primary and secondary pupils, could have uninterrupted academic calendar.

Mr Smith Ogunbanwo from Ori-Oke Iwa Mimo said the wish of the people is that government should put up ocean control mechanism like it was done in other civilised parts of the world.
He argued that government should rule out the possibility of relocating and evacuating the people to other safer areas, saying that the area is best suitable for their growing fishing occupation and attached to their ancestral home.

Ogunbanwo noted that his community is putting up efforts with the state government to relocate the submerged schools in the community to a new site like it was done in Aiyetoro and Gbabijo communities.
They cried out to the government at all levels to swiftly come to their aid as many of their houses and homes built with bamboos, wood, planks on stilts, have been buffeted and submerged by the sea surge.

Attempts to reach the NDDC office proved abortive, but a call to one man identified as Asogbon in the Igbokoda office, said he was not competent to speak on the multi-billion naira shoreline protections awarded by the commission since 2004, without any meaningful development.
While Ebiseni and Ogunyemi, in telephone conversations, disclosed that the state government is working tirelessly at providing relief materials to the affected communities on Tuesday (tomorrow).

The Senator representing the district, Pastor Yele Omogunwa, commiserated with the people living along the coastal line over the ecological disaster.
“I really, really sympathize with my brothers and sisters in the coastal communities of the state on the perennial sea surge affecting the area, which has led to loss of valuable properties and difficulties to their livelihood.”
Omogunwa assured the people that the government at all levels will not abandon them, and as their representative in the National Assembly, he promised to ensure a lasting solution to the recurrent disaster.

The former state Commissioner for Works, Omogunwa, affirmed that he has a lot of responsibilities towards the welfare of the people, saying as a senator working on the mandate of the people, he would complement the efforts of the state government to bring succour to them.
“I will make sure the multi-billion naira shoreline protection contract awarded by the NDDC is properly executed to the benefit of the people of the area,” he said.