Sangana and Ayetoro communities in Bayelsa and Ondo states have in the past few weeks suffered massive losses occasioned by furious ocean surge that hit their communities like a thunderbolt. Hundreds of houses were destroyed in the incident leaving hordes of the victims displaced and disoriented. The menace remains unabated, especially in Ayetoro where multi-million contracts meant to address the challenge were abandoned after mobilisation fees were paid, INNOCENT DURU reports for THE NATION.
Emmanuel Aralu, a resident of Ayetoro, a popular community in Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo State, took to barbing business after a fruitless search for a white collar job years after he graduated from the university. With the money he realised from the business, he was able to put food on the table for his family and also attend to other needs.
But all that was gone when an ocean surge swept through the area penultimate Sunday, wreaking monumental havoc on the community founded in 1947.
Speaking in an emotion laden voice, Aralu said: “The incident consumed my means of livelihood. I had a barbing shop which was pulled down. I lost a good part of my valuables. It has greatly affected my means of livelihood.
“I am a graduate, and since I couldn’t get a white collar job, I resorted to barbing business. I am living on nothing now.”
Besides his personal loss, Aralu said, “many others too have been crippled economically here in Ayetoro.”
The incident, according to him, has been recurrent. “It is a huge challenge that is beyond the capacity of Ayetoro community. If not, we won’t be crying out as we are doing,” he said.
Aralu noted that the latest incident occurred two Sundays ago while they were in the church.
He said: “Between 1:30 and 2 pm when we closed, we discovered that the broad street had been over flooded. The surge took a more menacing dimension the following day, which was a Monday.
“The surge was about six to seven feet high. The waves were destructive. It pulled down everything that stood as a hindrance to its flow.
“Here in Ayetoro, we are under the sea level as we speak. In the past, we were above sea level, but the situation right now has put us below the sea level.
“This gives the waves the power of rolling, and that is what it uses as a weapon to destroy and pull down anything, no matter how strong or big.
“It comes with full force and barges at anything it comes across, then drags those things back into the ocean.
“That explains why many of our people lost all their valuables. The challenge lasted about six to seven days.”
With many people rendered homeless by the incident, Aralu wondered how they would be able to have a roof over their heads again, considering the high cost of building in the riverine area.
He said: “The cost of building houses here in Ayetoro is three or four times higher than it costs to a build house upland.
“Recently, we did a quotation for a makeshift building, and by the time we completed the estimate, we arrived at N6,933,740 for a small bungalow.
“Imagine someone wanting a complete building.”
Iretiolu Ajinde, another member of the community, was visibly ruffled as he spoke with our correspondent. His day had been turned into night by the incident and there appeared to be no light at the end of the tunnel.
His words: “My father’s house was destroyed alongside other buildings. We have lost between 500 and 600 houses to the incident.
“Our people are physically, psychologically and emotionally traumatised. People who were healthy before the incident have become sick.
“There are some of them that we cannot pinpoint what is wrong with them. We only know that such people are not physically fit again.
“Rheumatism is very rampant here now. This has been affecting our people a great deal.
“Many of the victims have become homeless. They have resorted to living in tents, which expose them to other challenges.”
Ajinde’s remarks were corroborated by Beremoye Adedoyin whose father’s house was also destroyed by the surge.
He said: “My father’s building has been destroyed by the sea surge. The one built by my mother has also been pulled down by the menace.
“My family and I are just living a life that is not meaningful because of the level of destruction we have suffered
“Many elderly people in the community have become sickly because they have been rendered homeless by the challenge.
“They had houses before but the menace has destroyed the buildings.
“The rising health challenges among our people have led many into their early grave.”
Adedoyin lamented that “all that our forefathers put in place when they founded the community in1947 have been destroyed. All our schools, both primary and secondary, hospitals and religious houses have been destroyed.
“All the industries established by them have been destroyed by ocean surge. Our condition has moved from bad to worse to the point that we are finding it extremely difficult to feed in the community.”
The embattled young man berated the government for abandoning them in the trying times, saying: “There is no form of help from the government. The government should come and assist us in these trying times.
“Our intrinsic values as human beings have been eroded. It doesn’t appear as if it is human beings that are living here anymore.
“The grave destruction of the great efforts that our forefathers made to develop the community hurts us a great deal.
“We cannot earn a living from the sea anymore.
“High blood pressure has been on the rise since the incident occurred. Even younger people who are not supposed to have high blood pressure are having it.
“This has been leading to stroke or partial stroke in some cases. Ailments that did hitherto not exist here have begun to manifest since the incident happened.”
Billion of naira wasted on shore protection contract
Findings made by our correspondent revealed that there had been efforts by the federal government to tackle the threat posed by the sea incursion in the community but it all was fruitless.
Investigation revealed that the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) on December 15, 2004 awarded a contract for shore protection in the community to the tune of N2.4 billion while about N600 million was released for the contract. When hopes were high that an end to the problem was in sight, the contract was abandoned.
Five years after the job was abandoned, the contract was re-awarded in 2009 to the tune of N6.2 billion, N930 million of which was paid as mobilization fee. But the project was again abandoned, leaving the people at the mercy of natural calamities.
A report by International Centre for Investigative Report (ICIR) said the total amount spent on the shore protection work after it was awarded twice stood at N3,300,000,000 yet the project remained uncompleted.
Shore protection is a measure aimed at protecting, preserving or restoring the shore and the dynamic coastal landscape as well as protecting against coastline retreat to the extent possible.
Community demands revisit of contract
Members of the embattled community have raised eyebrows against the ritual of bringing palliatives to them each time they suffer losses as a result of the sea incursion.
In place of palliatives, they are asking the federal and state governments to revisit the shore protection contracts earlier awarded by the NDDC.
The Public Relations Officer of Ayetoro Community Youth Congress, Thompson Akingboye, said: “Various government agencies are bringing relief materials to the community but what we need now is the shore protection and not palliatives.
“We have food that we can eat. Our problem is not about bringing food to us, although bringing it could cushion the ravaging effects of the sea incursion on our people.
“But that is not what we really need. What we need is the shore protection.”
Going down memory lane, he said: “In 2004, NDDC awarded a contract for shoreline protection, but the money was looted and siphoned by some people in the corridors of power.
“The contract that was awarded then was about N3 billion. In 2009, the contract was re-awarded but the same fate befell it. The contract has not been executed till now.”
Ayetoro people, he said, are passing through hell. “The community is at the mercy of sea now. That is why we are appealing to all relevant government agencies like NEMA, Ministry of Disaster and Humanitarian Affairs, the Ministry of Environment to come to our aid so that the community will not go into extinction.
“Over 2,000 people have been displaced. A good number of them are squatting in different places.”
He regretfully noted that hundreds of houses were destroyed by the sea incursion. “I am also affected. My father’s house was also washed away,” he said.
“That of my maternal grandmother has also been destroyed by the ravaging sea surge. I am squatting with a friend together with my family.
“Our people are living in abject poverty now as our means of livelihood have been destroyed. Even the broad street where other minor streets were linked to has been submerged by the ravaging sea surge.
“Even the economic activities of the people have been paralysed. People are relocating on a daily basis. The condition we have found ourselves in Ayetoro is very painful.
“We have lost property worth billions of naira. This ocean surge has been wreaking havoc on the community for the past 20 years now.”
Asked if the challenge in any way affected the education of the children, he said: “We have relocated the schools that we built about three times. We have kept relocating the schools.
“The first one that was built in 1977 has been washed away. We thereafter built another one which was also destroyed by sea incursion.
“The third one was built where we found a piece of land. We did all that so that our children will not be loitering around the neighbourhood.
“That also has been destroyed by the same problem. It is the one built by SUBEB that they are using now.
“Each time there is this kind of problem, the children may not go to school for a month.”
Like Ayetoro, like Sangana
The pains and losses recorded in Ayetoro are similar to what is experienced in Sangana, a fishing community in Bayelsa State.
In the last one month, the community has witnessed an unprecedented devastation at the hands of the sea from which they earn their living.
One of the victims, Amambebe Aaron, a retired policeman, said he lost his house, which he built with his retirement benefits, to the incident.
He said: “My building was washed away. I lost everything in the incident. I have nowhere to go.
“I moved my family to Yenagoa after the incident. The government should come and help us because we don’t want to run away from our village.
“Sangana is a God-blessed community. We have the longest bridge in the whole of Bayelsa State, and the moment the encroachment gets to it, the whole of Sangana is gone.
“As I am speaking with you now, we are going through terrible suffering, yet we have oil companies all around us. The state government should come and help us.”
When Shagari became president in 1983, Amambebe said, “he came to Sangana the second day he assumed office. He looked at the environmental devastation and wondered why we were suffering.
“He asked the then governor to sand fill Sangana but the system they used wasn’t able to put an end to the erosion. Everything they did was washed away.
“In a day, we lost about 60 houses. We have lost more than four schools, three churches.”
Another victim, Pama Martins, said: “I have been rendered homeless. I am now living in a school building. I built the house in 2012 and never imagined that I would one day become homeless again in my life.
“I built the house hoping that my children would have a roof over their heads in the future, but now everything has been washed away. My family is in the school building with me.
“The state government has not come to assist us in any way.”
Also reliving his experience, DicksonTekeyu, whose house was also affected by the surge, said: “I am also staying in a school for now. The school is not conducive for me as a family man. I am not happy living there.
“I don’t have money to build another house. We need help. Feeding has become a huge problem for me.”
We’re attending to victims – Ondo commissioner
Ondo State Commissioner for the Environment, Funso Esan, said the state and federal government agencies have been giving the necessary attention to the people of Ayetoro.
He said: “Today, the executive director, Project in NDDC is in Ayetoro as I am talking to you now. Yesterday, they took some palliatives to them from NDDC.
“The state government is attending to them too. The sea incursion is a difficult thing, but they are being attended to.
“They are thinking of relocating them but people will not want to leave their ancestral homes. The government is trying to plead with them that before anything is done they should relocate.
“That is where we are now. But by tomorrow if you ask them they will tell you that we have brought some relief materials to all of them.
On what the state government is doing to make sure that the abandoned contract is executed, he said: “The contract that was given by the NDDC twice, it’s a long time.
“The contractors could not do it. There were issues. It is either the contractor has no capacity or to take the materials there was very difficult.
“When you get to a town called Egbonla, there is no road except if you go through a canoe. It has been a challenge to transport materials to that side.
“I think they are finding a solution now. They are carrying out studies and where they can be able to get sand and stone. It is a tough task.
“But that is not the reason why the contractor has not done the job. The World Bank, through new map, carried out studies again and approved that study, yet nothing was done.”
The commissioner said the project would consume a lot of resources and “the state government hasn’t got enough money to do that.
“It should be a combined efforts by the NDDC, the federal government, the state government and so on. They have to pull resources together in order to do it.”
Bayelsa State Commissioner for the Environment Iselema Gbaranbiri did not respond to our calls seeking his reaction to the plight of the Sangana people.
When contacted, the spokesperson of NDDC, Ibitoye Abosede, confirmed that the commission was already on ground in Ayetoro.
He was, however, yet to respond to our enquiries about what was being done about the abandoned shore protection in the Ondo community.
