Tag: ONDO

Aiyetoro, a riverine community in Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo State, teeters, on the brink of collapse due to oceanic surges that are constantly washing away their homes and hopes. Assistant Editor, SEUN AKIOYE, who visited the community, brings the second part of the tragic story of an angry people.

FOR at least 15 years, disaster has relentlessly pursued the people of Aiyetoro community in Ilaje Local Government Area, Ondo State. A deeply religious community, the trouble that is ravaging the community has been overwhelming and it has shaken the faith of the people to its very roots.

All over the community, signposts of destruction are in the form of destroyed houses, devastated neighborhoods and ruined lives. Many of the indigenes in fear for their lives have fled the community, while about 30,000 are hanging on clinging to a thin hope of a better future. Strangely, the source of the town’s anguish is natural: The Atlantic Ocean.

“That is where my father’s house is now; it used to be somewhere in this town but it is now far into the sea. The ocean took it away about five years ago,” Folorunso Ewaarawon said, pointing somewhere about 20 kilometres inside the sea.

Ewaarawon, an unemployed man, remembered the unfortunate day he lost his family’s possessions to the ocean, which bordered the community. His father had been ill and lay prostrate in the house, while some other members of the family were away.

“Suddenly the sea came and overran the town, we all rushed out carrying whatever belongings we could carry. It was a terrible day and at the end we lost our house, many other people also lost their homes,” he said. His was double tragic, the father died a few months after the incident, broken-hearted and dejected.

The ocean surges have been no respecter of persons or callings; the wave that washed away the house of Bishop Eremibo Eretan, the spiritual and political head of Aiyetoro, came suddenly and with fury. It was in June 2015 and it began with a slight rain, then a gush of strong wind blew accompanied by an angry tremor of the ground; they were quickly followed by water from the sea, which subsequently sacked the town.

Eretan and his family had only a few minutes to pack the most important of their life possessions. Like a tsunami, the sea overran several buildings, assisted by a ferocious wind which blew off roofs and a tremor, which sank the houses. By the time the wind settled, Eretan’s house and five others had been become a rubble.

 

Fish wealth, oil death

Located on the Atlantic coast, Aiyetoro was founded by a group of Ilaje “rebel” priests of the Cherubim and Seraphim Church in 1947. The founders were inhabitants of scattered Ilaje communities bordering the Atlantic Ocean to the West and Okitipupa to the East. In the days when the Ilaje killed their twins because they believed they were evil and for preaching against the practice, the priests were expelled from the community.

The priests, citing the leading of the Holy Spirit, moved to another location close to the Atlantic, founded Aiyetoro on the principles of justice, equity and communalism and ruled, according to them, by direct dictates from the God. They founded the Holy Apostles Church from where all political decisions were made and were binding.

The community flourished, partly because of the ingenuity and obstinate determination of the founders and also because of the political and social system which ensured equality and a sense of belonging for all the citizens. By 1960, according to public records, proceeds from fishing made Aiyetoro one of the richest rural community in West Africa.

In the 1970s, oil was discovered in commercial quantities in the waters of Aiyetoro and multinational oil companies descended on the town to drill its offshore oil. And that, according to Eretan, the burden bearer of the community, opened the floodgate of doom.

Living in Aiyetoro is a life on the edge. According to Eretan, a tall dark man with bloodshot eyes and loud voice who has assumed the leadership since the king, Guard Olofin Asogbon, died in February 2015, the closest house to the sea at the time was 350 metres, but what has been eroded from the community land is over 400 metres.

“Anytime there is high tide, the ocean will move into the town; it takes over about a quarter of this town and many houses are flooded including the church. In April, the church was flooded; it took days to clean it up and of course two months after that, I lost my house to the ocean,” he said.

Perhaps nothing epitomises the tragedy that has become the lot of Aiyetoro than the once imposing three-storey palace built at the center of the town.  But the once magnificent palace has fallen on evil times. According to the people, the palace began to sink when a tremor was reportedly caused by an earthquake, which was triggered by oil exploration.

According to Eretan, “When the oil companies first came here in the 1970s to prospect for oil, they used some instrument to shoot into the bottom of the sea; it was that shooting that caused the sinking of our palace. I remembered that day, there was a great earthquake and then the building sank and it is still sinking today.”

A visit to the palace was convincing: the ground floor was already under the water such that when one looks at the building from afar, it tilts forward like the tower at Pisa. Yet, the family of the late king, having nowhere to go, remained in this dangerous building. A trip inside the palace revealed a most shocking spectacle; the water which sacked the first floor of the building had begun to climb gradually to the second floor. The family had wisely transported all their properties to the last floor but it was clear that the collapse of the palace is imminent.

Every child in Aiyetoro is aware of the imminent danger facing the community and life has not been the same. For the over 30,000 residents who have chosen to remain in the town, sorrow, tears and fear for the future rule their lives.

“We are confused and angry because every day, we see an inch of our land being taken over by the sea. Many years ago, we used to say that the sea cannot come near this place but now, a quarter of this town is in the ocean. Is this how we are going to wait till we all die?” Ewaarawon asked.

There is hardly any joy left in the town, all day and night, the angry sound of the ocean inflicted the people with fresh worries. In the past when the king was alive and the church functional, they would fill up into the church to implore the help of God against the Omolokun (god of the ocean). For the incredulous, this may sound superstitious but for Octogenarian Patricia Dadeowo, this is real.

“There is God in heaven,” she repeated for about the seventh time. “When the ocean first came to the town, we all prayed and fasted; even the children did not eat until noon. We went to the sea and called it by its name Otetebiete and God took control.” For effect, the children born in that year are named Olorunwa ( There is God).

A leadership tussle over who succeeds King Asogbon and a closedown of the church have brought double tragedy to the people. Prayers now hold in the town hall, while many of the young people are quickly losing faith. “There is power of God and we still believe it, but our sins are too many now; that is why miracles are not happening again,” Ewaarawon said.

In the absence of a miracle, the stark realities stare the people hard in the face. According to Benson Aribo, a graduate of the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye, Ogun State, and secretary of the Youth Association, a large part of the secondary school (Happy City College) has been washed away by the ocean.

“Our playing field and science laboratory are now somewhere there in the ocean,” he said. The people tried to rebuild the school but their efforts were consistently thwarted by the rampaging sea. The great flood in April 2015, which swept through the community, took with it the new school building.

There is hardly any household which has not been negatively impacted by the surging ocean. Three years ago, the sea came calling for Taiwo Omoyele, bringing down his house and with it his hopes. “This town is a big one and it is not the sea that should send us out of here; no house is safe anymore because this place we are standing used to be the center of town,” he said.

Lawrence Abakpolor is a former marine engineer; he retired to Ayetoro in 1983 to pursue his passion for fishing. But that passion has since turned to pains as his house is next in line to the rampage of the ocean. Every evening, Abakpolor, who has also since retired from fishing “because it is no longer profitable,” would sit in front of his house and viewed the ocean, calculating how many more surges would bring down his home.

“Every two months, the sea pays us a visit in this town and when that visits ends, many houses in this town would have gone with it. Early in June when the sea came, my house was almost submerged and as you can see, there is nothing between my house and the sea now. We have put our faith in God and now we live in fear,” he said.

Ibrahim Bankole, one of the prominent youths of the town, said the ocean surge has affected the economy of the town causing poverty. “We had a generator which powered this town before but it has broken down. We asked each house to contribute N1,200 monthly but that is even too much for the people. There is nothing left now and to eat for many families is a hard thing.”

The economy of Aiyetoro was built on the fish business. But the prosperity experienced in the days of communalism is now history which the current generation can only read about in books. There is hardly any fish left to fuel economic prosperity for the people. Snr. Apostle Jackson Honmane is the secretary, Nigeria Agricultural Cooperative Organisation, Ondo State, and a master fisherman. “Before now, just go anywhere in the sea and you will catch big fishes, but now we have spillage of oil at least twice a year and with that, the fishes have moved away and what we get now is this.”

Very few fishermen remain these days.  One of them is Oluwatunmise Omagbemi, a youth who usually leaves at 5:00 am and return 12 hours after with about three baskets of crayfish and tiny fishes.  “I spent three gallons of fuel costing N12,000 and when I sell the crayfish, I will make about N20,000, when I deduct other costs, I have barely enough.”

An evening by the Aiyetoro beach revealed the peril constantly faced by these fishermen who still cling to the age-long trade. Youths like Omagbemi and Ohunayo would climb into their boats before dawn and row against the sea armed with a great fishing net, a small bucket to bail out the sea water from the boat- and a paddle.

The sea, which was not taking kindly to this, lifted up the boat tossing it around in a great wave; it beats unabated with magnificent rage slapping little boats and small trawlers around. One could see the fishermen holding on tightly to the sides of the boat.

One would think such a perilous venture would yield enormous profits. Not in the least, as after about 12 hours of rowing, they come up with a mean harvest consisting of a few tiny fishes, crabs and about two baskets of tiny crayfish.

At the northern edge of the beach, the waves pummelled Tobiloba Japhet, a youth of about 10 years. “I come here to fish every day; whatever I catch, we will eat at home,” he said. His fishing rope is long and the end is tied to a pole from the remnant of a house washed to sea. After about one hour, he was rewarded with a tiny fish at first and then a medium size fish. He smiled with pleasure, attributing his luck to the presence of the reporter. “Please stay a little with me so that your luck can rub off on me,” he said.

The once prosperous fishermen of Aiyetoro blamed their misfortune on the activities of the oil companies operating offshore. In the night, one could see big red flames rising to heaven from several oil rigs far in the ocean.

In the evenings, the former fishermen met to discuss and moan their losses at the “Made Easy Café”.  But it seemed the more they met, the further they get to any solution.  One of such gatherings was on August 2, 2015; as usual it was all talks and no solution.

“ The oil exploration is causing us serious troubles here; every time there is spillage, we lose our livelihood and the oil companies do not care. There is nowhere to berth now because the sea has taken over our shores. In 1947 (when the town was founded), it was not like this until the oil drillers came. They sank our palace and destroyed our lives. They are also the cause of the ocean surge in this community,” Lawrence Lemamu, the chairman of the Nigeria Union of Fishermen and Sea Food Dealers said.

Bishop Eretan agreed with Lemamu. He said since oil exploration began, their lives have been turned upside down.  “The more they explore oil, the more we are in danger, we have not received any benefit from these oil companies,” he said.

In the absence of the fish, the only trade keeping the town alive is the crayfish business. All over the community, there are smoking houses where crayfish are smoked and dried waiting for customers from Onitsha, Port Harcourt and Lagos.

“We are facing this crayfish business because we cannot get normal fish anymore. Even now, the crayfish is very expensive because you have to go very far into the sea unlike before. We are suffering here; help us tell everybody what the sea is doing to us,” says Emily, a crayfish seller.

 

A white elephant project

Government’s intervention in the looming destruction of Aiyetoro began in 2004 when the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) awarded a contract for the shoreline protection to a company (name withheld) and paid  a mobilisation fee of N650 million.

However, though the people welcomed the project with bated relief, the company ended up disappointing the people as it abandoned the project soon after being paid to mobilise to site. The company’s engineers reportedly visited Aiyetoro purportedly for site inspection and left never to reappear again. Even now, the company has become a phoenix. All physical and online search for the company and its owner(s) ended in vain.

In 2006, NDDC re-awarded the contract to another company, Dredging Atlantic Limited (DAL), which is reputed for big-ticket contracts in the Ilaje area. DAL received a mobilisation of N2.5billion for the N6.5billion contract.

DAL moved to site had hardly settled down when excuses became the fare.

“They came up with the excuse that there is no sand in the area, but we told them that based on our own investigations that there is abundance of sand westward from Aiyetoro coast in Igbo Aiku and Araromi. We told the representatives of the company but they went to another place and claimed they did not have sand to do the work,” Dele Kudenhindu, the Principal Secretary of Aiyetoro told The Nation.

But the people  had little faith that DAL can undertake the project of that magnitude.

“They used us,” said one of the youth executives who preferred to be anonymous. “This is not how to do shoreline protection, what they are doing showed that they have no idea about this job,” he said.

It may be hard to fault the logic in this statement. Nine years after the project was awarded and the contractor moved to site, there is absolutely nothing to show that N2.5billion had been spent and that DAL had done any work on the coastline.

Eretan and Kudehindu said the company had acted with the utmost disregard for the people of Aiyetoro. “Up till now, we have not set our eyes on the contractor nine years after he started working in our community. We had set up several meetings but he refused to show up. In a project of this magnitude, he ought to have carried along the community leaders. He just abandoned everything here,” Eretan said.

The young people are worst hit. With practically no economic opportunities for them, they had put their hopes on the completion of the project to usher in a period of prosperity and opportunities. “We were all just waiting for this project because the ocean is really threatening us. There is a lot of things we can do but when you are not sure what the future holds, you are limited,” Iretolu Ajinde, the chairman of the Youth Association, said.

This sentiment is shared by Prince Moses Ashogbon, son of the last king of the town. A graduate of Adekunle Ajasin University with a degree in Political Science, Ashogbon cut a pitiable sight when The Nation met him.

Since the death of his father, he had continued to live in the distressed three-storey building which served as royal palace. Everybody in Aiyetoro blames the oil companies namely Mobil, Chevron, Conoil and Agip for the tragedy that has befallen the building.

“We want to bring back those good days; now we have many of our indigenes who are educated and talented but no opportunity. If we try to bring back the industries that we lost, we are always afraid of the sea; that is why it is so painful that the contractor has abandoned the project,” Prince Ashogbon said.

When The Nation visited the community in June 2015, disused equipment were scattered all over the coastline. A pipe which was used to feed sand into some bags lay alongside two tractors sitting by two piles of sand.

This reporter could view about 30 tarpaulins filled with sand placed beside the sea. A tractor, Wilco 3200c and a caterpillar D 6H LGP Series 11, appeared abandoned. All over the site, cows could be seen pasturing and the smell of cow waste and urine was overpowering. Aribo said that was the only evidence of DAL’s shoreline protection in Aiyetoro.

But on a repeated visit to the community by The Nation on August 1, 2015, nothing remained of the sandbags that were visible just two months before as they had all been washed away by the storm. Also the community had lost almost five metres of land to the sea in just two months.

“Every year, we lose over 50 metres of our land to the sea and that is in the minimum. What we are afraid of is that in the next two years, if this situation continues, there may not be Aiyetoro again, we do not pray for such to happen,” Ajinde said.

“We want the government to save our land, we cannot go to the north or the south, the school is in the sea and we discover that the contractors cannot do this job. It was not this bad when they came, it was in their very presence that the situation degenerated to this. We know that their equipment are rotting away, this is beyond us, we are tired.”

Akinluwa Thompson, a marine engineer, believes that the contractors should have gone far into the ocean about four fathoms to dreg before sand filling. Ajinde shared this opinion: “ They should have gone at least 700 metres offshore but what they are doing is onshore. They don’t know what they are doing and they should just come out to say they are not capable,” he said with a feeling of deep frustration and anger creeping into his face.

For many years, DAL had always avoided media enquiry regarding the Aiyetoro project but The Nation was able to track down the company’s Public Relations Officer, Sola Oyeloye, who put all the blame on the NDDC and insisted that the company has not abandoned site.

“We have not been paid for a year because NDDC pays by milestone. We wanted to source sand from the Atlantic Ocean, which is 23 kilometres away, but NDDC did not have the money for that; it took us about two years to even get NDDC to come around because we had to review the contract which took a lot of time,” he said.

Oyeloye also said the company is employing the geosynthetic tube method of protection for Aiyetoro. “This method has never been used before in West Africa; it requires a lot of technique, the water master we are using there, we are the second company to own it. So the work is ongoing as I speak to you. We promised the king that we are going to finish the job and we will.”

However, Oyeloye was shocked to learn in June that the king had died in February, heart-broken over the impending disaster in his community.

The geosynthetic method of shore protection, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, is “made of several geosynthetic sheets sewn together to form a shell capable of confining pressurised slurry. The slurry is sufficiently fluid so that it is possible to hydraulically fill the tube. After pumping the slurry in, the geosynthetic shell acts as a “cheese cloth,” allowing seepage of liquid out and retaining the solid particles.”

But many in Aiyetoro were quick to shoot down the method as employed by  DAL. According to Bankole, there is nothing to suggest such a method would work in this instance. “ What they did was to sew sand in tarpaulin bags which were totally destroyed by the waves, all the bags burst open and the sand was lost. If you go to the shore right now, you will see the bags littering everywhere,” he said.

This reporter did and found sandbags violently torn apart by the waves indicating that again the project has failed.

 

DAL, girls, workers

The boat house where DAL workers live rocked gently on the lagoon at the entrance to Aiyetoro jetty. For many years, most of the indigenes have looked upon the workers with indifference; a few looked on them with envy. Among this group are the young, poor Aiyetoro girls.

With paralysing poverty, the girls saw the workers as the only means out of poverty, at least temporarily and threw themselves into their amorous demands.

Aside one or two incidents involving the local girls, the workers who are changed after two years have kept to themselves in their boat. The Nation correspondent went undercover inside the boat house and discovered a gripping tale of neglect.

There were about 11 workers in the boathouse living in squalor when The Nation got inside. According to the workers, the head office in Port Harcourt had abandoned them at the site. “Nothing is working in this boathouse; we don’t have a toilet, because the one here is bad. If you flush, the wastes go directly into our water system. By the way, our water tanks are bad too; so we cannot store clean water, what we use is rain water,” one of the workers who conducted the reporter around, said.

The bathroom water is leaking into the rooms and the house has no electricity as the two 1,000kva generators are no longer working. For their toilet, the workers had made a small demarcation using a rag by the generator where all such ‘dirty businesses’ are conducted directly into the river.

The kitchen is unusable; so the workers are engaged in the habit of cooking in their rooms. The floor of the boathouse is rust in various places and poses a serious danger, especially at night. “We have complained to the office but they never respond, they have abandoned us here totally. We are even lacking in equipment, nothing is working,” the workers said.

They also complained of falling ill constantly because of the breeze from the sea and with no money or medications, the workers are forced sometimes to be at the mercy of the community. “The community people laugh at us when we go to charge our phones there, saying we can’t even power our own house, it is such a shame,” they complained.

However, the workers said they still continue to do whatever they could to ensure that the project continues. “We were doing pipe laying yesterday (August 1, 2015) and tomorrow, we will start full dredging. I do not know when the work will finish but we are doing our best,” one who claimed to be the leader said.

The Nation also learnt that the contractor is already tired of the project which he considered a drain on his time and energy. “Director, as the workers call him, is tired of this place; he wants this job to finish quickly so we can move to another one. We are also tired, we have been here for one year and half and we are suffering,” another worker said.

 

The role of NDDC

But what is the position of the NDDC in the unfolding tragedy? How was the first company able to get away with a N650million mobilisation fee without turning a sand? Why does DAL still retain the contract after its almost nine years abysmal failure? Does the NDDC have an effective monitoring and evaluation team?

But the Resident Commissioner of NDDC in Ondo State, Barrister Benson Amuwa, told The Nation in an interview in his house in Igbokoda that the main problem of the shoreline protection was lack of sand.

“There is no need to be sentimental about the project, I am aware there is a problem of sand. When the company bided for the contract, they took it for granted that there would be sand in the ocean,” he said in an interview conducted in his residence.

He added: “If there is sand in the ocean, you will see it by the beach; they had a dredger but no sand. If they are going to get the sand, the extra cost has to be built in. Since I have been here, the commission has not mobilised any contractor. What we do is you work and the project and monitoring team comes to evaluate and then you are paid.”

Amuwa would not totally exonerate Dredging Atlantic. “Am I exonerating the contractor? No, he may be hiding behind one finger but we cannot deny the existence of that one finger. Aiyetoro is a historic community of great significance, we will not sit down and watch it come to an end,” he said.

From all indications, it seems Aiyetoro is coming to an end and the people try to make the best of whatever is remaining of their time on the island. Every night, aided by the flicker from the street lights, Broad Street comes to life, petty traders ply their wares on the road, music blares from loud speakers, boy meets girl. Not far away, the angry roar of the ocean could be heard.

Eretan sat in his new house and listened to the waves, a spiritual feeling took hold of him: “I know and believe that human technology can do it, but if they do not come to our aid, our God can help us, much more than humans,” he said in a defiant voice.