The Deputy Executive Director of the Environmental Defenders Network (EDEN), Comrade Alagoa Morris, has stressed the urgent need for shoreline protection across Nigeria’s coastal and riverine communities, warning that continued erosion is wiping out entire towns and threatening lives and livelihoods in the Niger Delta.Comrade Morris made this known in a post shared on the official Facebook page of EDEN, where he decried the inaction of relevant authorities despite longstanding recommendations from the 44-member Technical Committee on the Niger Delta. The committee, which was established during the administration of the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, had highlighted shoreline protection as a critical intervention needed to save communities from coastal destruction.
“Unfortunately, while the proud waves of the Atlantic Ocean have continued to hit coastlines and wash away communities, waves generated by marine crafts on our rivers and creeks, coupled with high-pressure annual floods, have done the same frightening damage,” he said.He described the environmental toll as not only physical but deeply psychological. “The collective and individual losses associated with coastal and riverbank erosion are colossal,” he noted, adding that residents are left traumatized and live in constant fear of displacement.
According to him, while the Presidential Amnesty Programme — one of the committee’s recommendations — has made progress, other equally important issues such as ending gas flaring and implementing shoreline protection have been largely overlooked.
Comrade Morris identified highly affected communities including Ayetoro in Ondo State, Odioama, Sangana, Twon-Brass, Foropah, Ekeni, Ezetu, Amatu, Odi, North Kaiama, Sampou, Obogoro, Anibeze, Okpotuwari, Peremabiri, Olugbobiri, Lasukgbene, Ondewari, Abobiri, and many others that urgently require intervention.He said that without immediate and coordinated action, more communities risk being swallowed by the sea and rivers — not just physically, but in terms of their culture and history — adding that what stands to be lost are not only homes and farmlands, but the identity, heritage, and future of entire peoples across the Niger Delta.
He therefore called for stronger synergy among Federal Government agencies such as the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), the South-South Development Commission, the Ecological Fund, and state governments within the region to urgently address the menace of coastal and riverbank erosion.
