Ocean Surge: Ayetoro Residents Seek Govt’s Intervention

Fidelis David in Akure

Residents of the Ayetoro Riverine Community in the Ilaje Local Goverment Area of Ondo State have pleaded with the state and federal governments to rescue them from the verge of extinction, as the incessant incursion of the Atlantic Ocean has almost washed the community away.

The residents recently staged a protest, threatening to relocate to the state’s government house at Alagbaka in Akure, over alleged government’s neglect and unbearable conditions, which sea incursion has caused them.

THISDAY gathered that the ocean surge has destroyed property of the residents of the community while many had been rendered homeless.

The Public Relations Officer of the community, Mr. Victor Akinluwa, said the ocean surge comes midnight when no one could save any of their properties.
According to Victor Akinluwa, “we have long called the attention of the government to our challenges but nobody is listening.”

An environmentalist, Mr. Kolade Omoyeni, called for immediate intervention of the government and other stakeholders to save the community from being eroded by the ocean.

Omoyeni, who expressed fear that the erstwhile socialist community might be washed away as a result of incessant ocean inrush if government at all levels and other relevant authorities delayed in rescuing the community, pointed it out that the sea had destroyed the architectural and economic buoyancy of the community, due to oil exploration activities of oil companies in the adjoining communities.

“The oil companies carry out exploration in the communities surrounding Aiyetoro without acceding to international standard practice.

“They carry out their exploration activities without recourse to global environmental protection laws. This is the same inhuman attitude of the multinational companies in the whole of the Niger Delta.

“Black sooths are threatening the existence of most oil host towns from Bayelsa to Ondo State while the Petroleum Industrial Act cares very little (even in theory) about the continuous reckless damaging of the riverine areas and lands. The economy of the host communities in Niger Delta region is lamed by the crude activities of the oil companies.”

He also called on the intervention agencies – the Ondo State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission and Niger Delta Development Commission to save Aiyetoro community from being sunk by incessant ocean surge by ensuring that all abandoned intervention projects awarded in the coastal community were completed.

Omoyeni warned that if the community was allowed to be washed away by the ocean, several other riverine communities in the local government would suffer the same fate.

Another resident, Mr. Grace Lelawa, said, people in the community are scared that they may be totally wiped out by the sea in the next few days, stressing that the government has abandoned the community to be at the mercy of ecological disasters.

\al ruler in the town, Oba Olorunmbe Ojagbohun, who described the situation as devastating called on the government at all levels and well meaning Nigerians to come to their rescue by putting an embankment and reclamation.
“Half of the residential places have been swept away. Places that use to be buildings are now places where Fisher men fish. We have lost count of houses.

Oba Oloruninbe said: “It is devastation. Many people have been rendered homeless and many have become refugees in their own community. We have nowhere to go, 98 percent of my people are fishermen, I want to appeal to the federal government, state government and well meaning Nigerians to come to our aide.”