By Oguns Sunny
Afiesere Community in Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State has given a 7-day ultimatum to dredgers in the community to vacate the area. Speaking on behalf of the community on Monday during an emergency meeting with Dredgers, the President General of the Community, Mr. Richard Ovwreghederhwo, said that the decision of the community is irrevocable.
According to Ovwreghederhwo, the Dredging Activities have jeopardized essential infrastructure among which are the bridges and the local health centre. He said public outcry over the danger of the Dredging has heightened government’ scrutiny which has necessitated the community to take this action. His words: “As a result of public outcry on dredging activities in the community, the state government has called us to do the needful to avert any danger. “Now, we look at it critically and say there is no way this regime will allow this to happen. So, based on that, we decide to invite all the dredgers in Afiesere land and tell them that we are giving all the dredgers in Afiesere land 7 days ultimatum to move all their dredgers out of the land.
“So, the order from the government is that either we do the needful or take responsibility for any mishap. We will not allow this to happen and this is why we decided to call you here to let you know that the Afiesere Community is giving all the dredgers 7 days to move all their equipment from our river and our land. There is no Going Back on our decision”.
In his response on behalf of the dredgers, Dr. Anthony Ugbodeme (JP), a dredger operating within the community,said one week notice was not enough for the safe removal of Dredging equipment due to their challenges of logistics and finance. According to him, local workers and suppliers dependent on dredging operations for their livelihoods and therefore appealed for an extension up to one year to allow to be equipped financially and manageable transition.
His words:”I plead with the leaders of Afiesere Community that they should extend the time for us because the one week they gave us is too short. We rented the land where we are dredging and some of us just made payments to the people we rented the land from and some of the rents have not expired”.