By Obiabin Onukwugha
Many communities in Bayelsa State are experiencing coastal erosion and ocean surge.
While the government seems helpless, residents watch daily as their ancestral homes, lands and artefacts are washed away.
Recently, Canan-Irri, an agrarian Isoko community in Sagbama Local Government Area of the state raised alarm of the fear of being washed away as the coastal erosion surges.
According to community sources, the situation was exacebated after an Indian company, Sterling Global Oil Company, dredged the river sometime ago.
They said no fewer than 16 houses, the community market, which is the source of the community women livelihood and businesses, boreholes and several lives had been lost to the erosion.
A stakeholder in the community, Okemena Adigheji, stated recently when he spoke with newsmen that the people have been experiencing serious erosion for the past three years.
He said appeals by the community to the Bayelsa State Governor, Duoye Diri and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), was yet to yield any positive result.
Adigheji, who is the Community Development Committee (CDC) Chairman, said: ‘If you move round the riverine area within the coastal line, the erosion is affecting other communities but our own is more serious.”
“I have written to Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, in Port-Harcourt, the community also discussed with the Deputy Governor of the state, Sen. Lawrence Erwhrujakpo, on how the erosion was washing away the community. He confirmed to us that, to stop the erosion was an elephant project.
“We discussed the issue of the erosion with the member representing Sagbama/Ekeremor federal constituency, Fred Agbegi. He came to the community to see how the erosion had affected the community during the commissioning of the Community Primary Healthcare Centre.
“It is not because Canan-Irri is not an Ijaw-speaking community in the state that the state government has not given us the needed attention. We are minority, may be that is why they have not paid attention to our community.”
He called on the state government and relevant agencies to come to the aid of the community.