Crisis looms as 14 Lagos communities threaten to confront illegal dredging activities

Fourteen communities located in Era Town in Oto-Awori Local Council Development Area (LCDA) have threatened to shut down the dredging activities going on at the Ologe River if dredgers operating there refuse to rehabilitate their mining routes which run through the community.

The fourteen aggrieved Community Development Associations are: Era Awori CDA, New Era CDA, Era South CDA, Famosa Zone Z CDA, Famosa Zone A CDA, Igbonla CDA, Adaloko CDA, Nepa Quarters CDA, Oriade CDA, Ifesowapo CDA, New Era Afromedia CDA, New Era Estate CDA, Ire Akari CDA, and Unity CDA.

Speaking during a press briefing held in Era Town on Wednesday, the Fourteen CDAs said that despite a stop-work directive on the dredging of the Ologe River from the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), the dredgers have refused to stop work and have rendered the roads leading into the communities impassable.

According to the Chairman of the Joint Action Committee of the CDAs, Mr Gbenga Eguntola, “Our gathering today is to focus and chorus collective dirge of sorrows, pains, challenges that have befallen and are befalling us. We speak of the frustrations the realities in our community have foisted on us.

“The daily realities we sleep and wake up to is the destruction of our beautiful ecosystem by the illegal dredging activities of mindless commercial profiteers. 

“It needs be said that the particular road destroyed is the main artery connecting and traversing the various communities under Eraland, starting from Fiditi B/Stop portion of Afromedia-Ajangbadi road where the major reconstruction of the road started years ago and stopped in 2018, to Adaloko town, down to Odan-Era to finally stop at Era-Awori town.

“The situation of this road is aggravated by the activities of dredgers that invaded the peace and serenity of the shoreline of Ologe river in Era town and these dredgers have been operating illegally for so many years now unabated. . 

“The peace and serenity of Ologe River, a major recreational and tourist attraction, particularly, during major festivals like Ileya, Easter and Christmas has been severely tampered with. It has become desolate and this desolation has even affected the local economy of the town, such that fishermen and women could no longer ply their trade. Our road is totally destroyed; commuting from one point to the other has been made much more difficult with the attendant astronomical increase in transport fares. 

“Accessing public facilities like health centres and government primary schools are nearly impossible to the sick, the aged, pregnant women, children and workers, particularly during the rainy season.

“Houses close to the epi-centre of the dredgers’ operational areas are cracking up and collapsing; landlords are ‘abandoning their houses to be tenants elsewhere while tenants are also foregoing their rent to stay elsewhere, small and big real estate investors are losing their investments. 

“The most basic of all legal duties, obligations and responsibilities by virtue of the extant Mining Act as amended, which is to carry out routine remedial works along the mining routes of the dredgers, has been rebuffed by these dredgers. They violated laws with impunity even as they put on their untouchable toga. What have we not done to make them comply with laws and to incorporate CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) as one of their core operational philosophy?

“All the entreaties of the community were rejected by these operators as they bluntly refused to sign the’ many Memoranda of Understanding the community, through its traditional authority, sent to them. 

“Aided and abetted by compromising government officials, they have become so emboldened that they continue to operate with impunity. Stop Work Orders from government agencies are treated with disdain, while government officials look the other way.

“Our community has become such a broke community. Poverty is increasing and life is becoming nasty, brutish and short! The last Press Conference the traditional head of the Community had with you gave us so much hope that government would look our way and find solution to, not just the menace of the dredgers, but through wholesale intervention of the Lagos State Government by continuing the construction of Afromedia-Ajangbadi road which was stopped in 2018 to Odan-Era roundabout and from there, a total reconstruction and revamping Of Era road to link Vespa bus/stop, Otto-Ijanikin corridor along Badagry Expressway. 

“We wonder how about 20 dredgers would be operating within a space of less than half a kilometre and not cause environmental damage?

“It needs be placed on record that the Mining Act has not placed any onerous responsibility on the dredgers. All it asks them to do is remedial works on their mining routes. We hereby call on the government agencies of Lagos State, the Federal authorities exemplified by NIWA as well as Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, and our pragmatic Lagos State Governor to come to our aid in Era-Awori before we take our destiny in our hands by protesting and shutting down dredging activities in Ologe River.”

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