IT is baffling that  Itsekiris  and  Ijaws are still folding  their hands and watching   while policies that ought to be beneficial to their people are confined permanently  to office drawers. It hurts to know that the Delta State government is most insensitive to the transportation problem prevalent in the riverine communities of the state.

No matter how it is explained, there is no justification in having so many buses in the hinterland, while  the coastal communities of the state are neglected. In view of the sordid neglect, it is imperative to state here that the resources of these communities remain the economic mainstay of the state. Yet,  no meaningful development is taking place in the riverine communities of the state. At least, I can speak authoritatively on the neglect of the riverine communities. While growing up, I drank water from oil platforms without minding whether it was drinkable or not.

Rather than draw up a master plan and embark on convincing development projects in the riverine communities of the state, the Delta government keeps feeding the people with the hoax that  riverine communities are inaccessible, hence grossly underdeveloped. The riverine communities of the  state are mainly in Burutu, Patani, Warri South-West, Warri-North and Warri South, and  part of Aboh in Ndukwa-East.  These communities provide well over 97% of the state’s collective resources,  yet the inhabitants of these communities are denied all the  basic social amenities. When I say all the basic amenities of life, I should be taken seriously here!

Last June, the Delta state Commissioner of Transport told the people of these communities , and Deltans in general, that the state government had acquired 130 waterbuses for the purpose of easing transportation in the creeks. Another June is here, yet nothing has been heard of government’s plan to rescue the indigent people of these coastal communities from the claws of shylock private transporters. For how long will government continue with this kind of policy somersault? For how long will successive Delta governments toy with the lives of the riverine dwellers?

The case is more pathetic when you take into account the fact that in spite of the fact that  3,533 tricycles, 750,600 regular buses and 50 Marco Polo buses were acquired by government, not one boat was sent to any of the riverine communities of the state! It is most unfortunate that we have people as representatives of these communities  in government who are feigning ignorance  of this glaring neglect.

Emotoghan Focados was a university mate at  Delta State University, Abraka. Back home at Ayakuromo, his father was a teacher who must travel to Asaba, the state capital at the end of each passing  month. Today Emotoghan laments the economic hardship and pains of travelling to Asaba.  This is similar to the hardship and pains Emotoghan’s father suffered  12 years ago.

In the 1990s, Emotoghan’s father spent between N250 and N400 to ferry down to Warri. Today, the cost of ferry ride from Ayakuromo to Warri has risen to between N3,000 and N3,500. There can not be any doubt that the exorbitant cost of riverine transportation has further worsened the economic situation in the coastal communities of the state.  It beats one’s imagination that the Delta State government  could look on while people  in these communities suffer abject  neglect.

I have been to Tsekelewu, an Ijaw community in Warri-North. My stay at the community was hellish. It wasn’t because the inhabitants were hostile, rather living in Tsekelewu was awful.  A small bottle of Eva water sells for N150 while the big bottle goes for N250. I complained about the cost, and the seller, a native, and a woman  of average age, drew my attention  to the cost of transportation. I knew she had a reason, for I also paid through my nose to get to Tsekelewu. This is one of several economic hardships the people of Tsekelewu and several other riverine communities are exposed to daily.

In the late 1970s, the military administrator of then Bendel  State was able to alleviated the hardship of the riverine dwellers through the introduction of ferry transportation  across the costal communities of the  state. As a boy growing up in Koko, it was a past-time for me and my siblings to troop down to the waterfront at the Beach area of Koko to catch a glimpse of the beautiful Odokun ferry boat whenever it was passing through Koko, en-route Oghoye. It was a ritual to us as children then . I was so much obsessed with the beauty of the Odokun that I longed for a voyage in it, but this could not be.

Former governor James Ibori made an effort in this direction, but he failed.

It cost N3000 to travel by speedboat  from Sapele to Tsekelewu or Oghoye in Warri-North.  A journey from Koko to Sapele in Uduaghan’s mass transit bus  costs just N200. Sapele to Warri also costs the same amount of money. Ughelli to Warri is also about the same amount. This is also the situation for Abraka to Agbor Abraka to Sapele which used to cost N600 before the introduction of the Uduaghan mass transit scheme.

What does one make out of a situation where he has to up to N3000 travelling from where he lives to a point not particularly far away?  Suffice to say that this injustice to people of the affected communities.  We have seen the tricycle and  the buses, we wait to the see the 130  waterbuses purchased by the Uduaghan administration.

Okofu Ubaka, a social critic, wrote from Koko, Warri- North LGA, Delta State.