By Samuel Oyadongha
Yenagoa — MANY years after indigenes of Anibeze, a predominantly fishing and farming settlement on the bank of the Forcados River in Sagbama Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, raised alarm over the devastating erosion ravaging their community, nothing tangible has been done to tackle the menace.
Unless urgent remedial steps are taken by the relevant authorities, this Isoko speaking community and one of the oldest in Isoko nation may be lost to the rampaging river- induced erosion.
Scores of buildings and farmlands have been washed away with several families displaced over the years.
Investigation by Vanguard revealed that this settlement, which is less than four kilometres from the East-West Road, cannot be accessed by land as the community self-help road project, the first of its kind in the then Sagbama council of the old Rivers State, is today abandoned and in deplorable state.
No government, be it in the old Rivers State or present day Bayelsa State, has deemed it necessary to rehabilitate the road.
Troubled by the yearly river induced erosion, indigenes of the community have repeatedly appealed to the Federal Government to save their community from extinction.
This reporter, who has been monitoring the erosion menace in Anibeze, learnt from the concerned natives that over a third of the community located in what could be described as the ‘food basket of Bayelsa State’ has been lost to the erosion.
“It is always a pathetic scenario seeing families battling against this awesome force of nature during the peak of the flood season,” a native, who simply gave his name as Samuel, lamented, adding that over 100 buildings had been lost to the erosion menace.
This, it was learnt, include the old primary school building that was built in 1922, the Kingdom Hall of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Christ Apostolic Church, CAC, building, Anglican Church building and the generator house built by the Melford Okilo administration when Bayelsa was part of old Rivers State.
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