battle line appears drawn between residents of the waterfronts and the Rivers state government over the latter�s insistence on demolishing and relocating the residents in Oroigwe Community in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of the state.
The Port Harcourt aborigines, who claim the waterfronts are their ancestral home and have lived there for 50 years, vowed not to relocate to any area there are no rivers for fishing. But the government says there is no going back on the relocation plan.
Residents of the waterfronts stretch from the Port Harcourt slaughter up to the Njemanze area in the Diobu area of the state capital.
Speaking with Saturday Independent on Thursday, leader of the Port Harcourt Aborigines, Mr Darik Acheseomie, said there were up to one million people whose source of livelihood were being threatened by the government�s plans.
He said the plan was the Ikwerre ethnic group�s scheme to uproot the Okrika people from their ancestral home.
The state governor, Celestine Omehia, is an Ikwerre, and Oroigwe where the government plans to build 6,000 houses for all the displaced persons, is also in Ikwerre land.
But Acheseomie said the about one million people living in the 20 waterfronts earmarked for demolition would not move to anywhere they would find it difficult to fish.
“We cannot move to Oroigwe. We are typical fishermen. And where there is no water for our coastal fishing activities, there is nothing we can do in such a place,” he said.
Explaining that they were not ready to confront the government on the matter, the community leader added: “If it is road they are going to make, they can do their roads. They should sandfill the mangrove.
“We have to live where there is water. We cannot leave our ancestral homes. We have been here over 50 years. They want to move us to where life will be difficult for us. I don�t think we can go. It is not something you can just come and demolish the waterfronts after about four months notice.”
“If they take us to Oroigwe, we cannot go there. Even if we must move, we must go to a riverine area. We are telling them to sand-fill the mangrove area so that we can go there and continue our fishing business.”
He informed that Okrika chiefs had written to the government on the matter and were awaiting the government�s reaction.
“Our chiefs have written to the government and we are waiting for them,” he stated.
According to him, the plan to demolish the waterfronts and relocate them had nothing to do with the so-called cult activities in the state.
“Are all the cult groups in Rivers State only in the waterfronts? Are we saying that the cult groups are only in the waterfronts? What are we talking about? Who sponsored them? Who used them before now?
“The cult thing is used to cleanse the Okrika indigenes from their community. It is an Ikwerre ethnic agenda to cleanse the Okrika people from their heritage. It is not necessarily the cult thing. The militants that went to take the deputy speaker�s father, the militants that took Omehia�s mother, were they from the waterfronts?” he further queried.
The government has, however, insisted that the people will move.
Commissioner for Information, Mr Emma Okah, said it was in their own interest to quit to allow for development of the area.
According to him, the people would not be able to resist the urge to move once their new homes were ready. He said 6,000 houses were being planned for the residents, most of who are from Ogoni, Okrika and Akwa Ibom.