Delta Community Raises the Alarm as Ocean Washes away Houses

Sylvester Idowu in Warri

The people of Ogulagha, a coastal community in Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State have raised the alarm over erosion of their area by ocean surge eroding their houses and cemeteries into the Forcados river.

Ogulagha is a major host to the Forcados terminal and about 3.30 hours to Warri in Warri South Local Government area of the state.

Chairman of Ogulagha, John Bebapere raised the alarm in an interview with THISDAY recently during a one-day dialogue tagged “Fishnet Community Dialogue” organised by Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) to mark this year’s United Nations World Oceans Day 2022, held in the community.

He therefore, called on relevant government agencies and oil companies to come to their aid, saying erosion has almost taken over their community.

Bebapere requested for shoreline protection to protect the community from the surging erosion from the river.

He said so far, they had lost uncountable houses and about 200 corpses to erosion sweeping through the community’s burial ground and appealed to relevant agencies to urgently intervene.

The community leader also lamented the impact of oil spill on their river, adding that the pollution had created huge economic problem for the predominantly fishing community.

“The oil companies operating here are contributing largely to the pollution of our river. We suffer erosion problem here. Swift erosion is washing away our corpses. Our greatest fear now is that the erosion should also not start coming to sweep human beings into the sea,” he said.

Some indigenes of the community, Madan Prince Musa, Blessing Aratawei and Clement Gbamokumor, who also spoke during the dialogue, said most species of fishes had long disappeared from the Forcados river because of oil pollution.

The communities expressed gratitude to HOMEF for coming to the area on the occasion of this year’s World Ocean Day, pleading that
they should globalise their plight.

Project Lead, Fossil Politics and Climate Change, Mr. Cadmus Atake-Enade and Head of Media, HOMEF, Kome Odhomor in separate chats with journalists, said the dialogue was all about bringing to fore some of the challenges of the area on the occasion of this year’s World Ocean Day, adding that this would make the relevant quarters to be aware of the challenges.

They said the community dialogues, a project of HOMEF is a diagnostic exercise aimed at providing space for Community (coastal and non-coastal) members to review environmental situation of their areas and to identify needed areas of action to preserve and defend their heritage.