Inyang Etim, the village chief of Akwa Obio Effiat in Akwa Ibom State’s Mbo Local Government Area, has urged the federal government to act quickly to protect the people from the threat of ocean surge.
He bemoaned the city’s vulnerability to ocean surge and said that, in a last-ditch effort to stop the surging water, the group built a small embankment to temporarily stop the surge.
This was said by Etim on Tuesday when he welcomed a delegation from the Citizens Right Department of the office of the Attorney General of the Federation to the area on an information-gathering mission. The delegation was led by FK Bebu.
Recall that Saviour Itabana, the Chairman of the Effiat Community for Sustainable Development Initiative, had led the Effiat Clan Council to the office of the Attorney General of the Federation & Minister of Justice, where he had presented Abubakar Malami, the Minister of Justice (SAN), with the suffering and plight of the community.
Etim said, “We appreciate the team for risking your lives to come all the way from Abuja to see what is happening in the community, As you can see this community has no access road, good drinking water, electricity, schools and health worse of all, we have been living at the mercy of ocean surge, to prevent the sea from eating the village, the villagers constructed a local embarkment to temporarily prevent the surge.”
In his speech, Samson Onwukwe, the leader of the Niger Delta Youth Elite, thanked God for allowing the FG team to visit and see the problems that the Niger Delta people were suffering.
He observed that the chaos being meted out to them had people losing patience and asked the Federal Government to act quickly before anything else occurred.
He emphasized that the multinational corporations had failed to fulfill their obligation to meet the demands of the people.
“This is disheartening and it appears there is a conspiracy between the companies and the person meeting them on behalf of the community. If we in the Niger Delta do anything, they will say we are militants or pirates. This community is being marginalised and deprived.
“Please when you return to the ministry, kindly do something about it. Seven multinational companies are operating in this terrain without any evidence? The man in question is no more needed,” he stressed.
Bebu, the delegation’s leader, responded to the problems by assuring the oil-producing villages that the suffering they have endured owing to multinational and indigenous firms’ disregard for corporate social responsibility will soon be history.
The long years of negligence by international and indigenous oil companies to perform their corporate social responsibilities in their host communities in Akwa Ibom State, would soon be over,” he said.
At a reception hosted at the Akwa Obio Effiat community, the delegation’s leader promised to give the Minister of Justice a thorough written report detailing the grievances and frustrations of the populace.
He added, “When we are done with fact finding, we are going to make a report to ensure that the government of this country takes care of your community. We have observed that you have been very peaceful and we plead with you to continue remaining peaceful.
“We bring you a message of hope and peace. You must know that government is making efforts to arrest criminality in the whole of Niger Delta.
“We are going to stress in our reports to ensure that government takes preemptive measures to take care of the community, and we shall ensure that oil companies do not shy away from their corporate social responsibilities.”
