Ogulagha Community: Alarm Raised As Ocean Washes Away Houses
The residents of Ogulagha, which is a coastal community in the Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State, are speaking out regarding the erosion of the area by ocean surge which is eroding their houses and cemeteries into the Forcados river. The Ogulagha area is a major host to the Forcados terminal and approximately 3 hours and 30 minutes to Warri in the Warri South Local Government area of the state.
John Bebapere, the Chairman of Ogulagha, had raised the alarm in a recent interview with THISDAY during a one-day dialogue that was tagged “Fishnet Community Dialogue” and had been organised by the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) to commemorate this year’s United Nations World Oceans Day 2022, that was held in the community. He then called upon the relevant government agencies and oil companies to come to their aid by saying that the erosion has almost taken over their community.
Mr. Bebapere gave a request for shoreline protection so as to protect the community from the surging erosion from the river. He stated that so far, they had already lost an uncountable number of houses and around 200 corpses to the erosion that had swept through the community’s burial ground and he appealed to the relevant agencies to urgently intervene.
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The community leader had also lamented the impact of oil spill on their river and added that the pollution had created a 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.”
Madan Prince Musa, Blessing Aratawei and Clement Gbamokumor, who are some indigenes of the community, had spoken during the dialogue and said that most species of fishes had disappeared from the Forcados river as a result of the oil pollution.
The communities then expressed their gratitude and appreciation to HOMEF for coming to the area on the celebration of this year’s World Ocean Day and pleaded that their plight should be globalised.
In separate chats with journalists, Mr. Cadmus Atake-Enade, the Project Lead, Fossil Politics and Climate Change, and Kome Odhomor, the Head of Media, HOMEF, explained that the purpose of the dialogue was all about bringing to forefront some of the challenges of the area on the occasion of this year’s World Ocean Day and added that this would make the relevant quarters to be aware of the challenges.
According to them, the community dialogues, a project of HOMEF is a diagnostic exercise that is aimed at providing a space for Community (coastal and non-coastal) members to give a review of the environmental situation of their areas and identify needed areas of action so as to preserve and defend their heritage.
SOURCE: THISDAY
