The entire women, Baales, and inhabitants of Igbekodo/Shirinwon,
Apakin, Itamarun, Oriyonrin, Otoolu, Okegelu, Lepia, Ikegun, Folu, Okun-Ise,
Akodo-Ise, Imedu, all communities of Lekki LCDA, Ibeju-Lekki local
government area of Lagos state, have sent an SOS message to the Lagos
State Government, to come to their aid and save their lives, means of livelihood,
and properties from been destroyed by the encroaching Atlantic Ocean that have ravaging the above mentioned. communities
This plea is coming on the heels of the events affecting the lives and means of
livelihood of the residents of the communities over two years.
These communities are hosts to the Dangote petrochemicals industries and
Refinery company, and also the Lagos Deep Seaport.
Lekki Deepsea port is being built over 90ha of land at the Centre of the
Lagos Free Trade Zone, approximately 60km east of Lagos.
It is the first
Deepsea port to be built in Nigeria.
The environmental catastrophes they are experiencing are the combined effects of
the dredging and other construction projects being embarked upon by both
Dangote Refineries and the Lekki Deep Seaport project.
The affected communities however, on Monday embarked on peaceful protest after several appeals have made to the concerned authorities without any sigh of relief and respite. The aggrived communities took the protest to the council chairman as well as Dangote’s seaport.
In their collective speech, the communities said ‘Help our communities, our lands are being washed away.
The rate of erosion is alarming. The Atlantic Ocean is fast eroding the
shoreline at an unprecedented rate of about 5meters per day. The shoreline has
an initial setback of about 150m some years ago. this has been reduced to less
than 40meters by the constantly expanding ocean in recent times. Many boats,
canoes, fishing equipment, and farmlands have been lost to ocean
encroachment. If nothing is done urgently, entire communities will eventually
be eventually wiped away. For over 34 months, the ocean surge has continued.
People can no longer leave their boats and wares on the beaches in the evenings,
for fear that the ocean might have swept them away by the following morning.
The boats now have to be towed away from the beaches far into the land and
tied to trees with ropes. This is what we have been going through every day for
over two years now.
Our coconut trees and other crops planted around have all been washed
away. Crops worth tens of millions of Naira have been washed away, and
means of livelihood have been lost.
We can no longer fish productively, as we
have to venture very far, deep into the ocean before we can catch any
considerable volume of fish, unlike before when most of the fishing activities
are done close to the shore. This in itself is dangerous to the fishermen, as there
is an increased risk involved in this venture.
The construction and dredging activities have driven fishes further out
into the open ocean. The usually restive ocean is now constantly raging,
destroying lands, crops, houses, and businesses. Before these dredging
activities started, the ocean is restive and we only experience rough weather for
just a few days in a year. But since these activities started, the waves have
increased, and the sea has been continuously unresting for two years back now.
The waters are no longer calm, the turbulence has increased and the shores are
disappearing. We are using this enviable opportunity to call Lagos state government, Mr. Babatunde Sanwo-Olu and Alhaji Aliko Dangote to save us from this impending calamity, our life and properties are not safe any longer.
Meanwhile, during the protest, the representative of Dangote who addressed the protesters said he was hearing of such calamity for the first time, ‘We don’t know that you are facing such challenges and I’m assuring you that we shall resolve it, he also said that the communities should present delegates for proper discussion with Dangote’s management. The meeting was later held for about one hour and the communities were assured of possible solution to the problems.
However, the Chief of staff to the lekki LCDA chairman, Mr. Tunde Taiwo who spoke to the protesters said the government shall look for a solution to the problem, our chairman is a very listening person, this is not what government can do alone, as we all aware that the project that caused the ocean surge is not from the government, we need to look for the lasting solution for it, I’m assuring that our chairman is going to make sure that we find lasting solution to it. I will also tell you that you should bring some delegates to have roundtable discussion with chairman so that we can look for way forward.
In a similar vein, the HRM Oba Abdulhasim Ogunbeku, Oni Lekki of Lekki who spoke to reporters also said that he was not comfortable with the level of damages done to the communities.
I can tell you that I’m so affected by the ocean surge because those affected are my people, they have came to me on it and I have also taken some steps to arrest the situation. What happens there is a result of climate change, but we have to look for solution. I’m assuring my people that we shall get final solution to it.