Starting from Friday, the writer today continues his argument that the demolition of the waterfront communities was not in the interest of the residents.

THE Commissioner for Information and Communication, Mrs. Ibim Semenitari claimed that the residents in the waterfront communities live demeaning life and that the government had decided to take the people away from such miserable condition of living. In fact, what the government is doing is to render those who live in slums completely homeless.

Though, the government claimed to have a compensation package, the compensation was imposed on the landlords without prior negotiation in a ‘take it or leave it’ approach. The tenants are not even considered for compensation.

To challenge the authoritarian manner with which government is going about the demolition and compensation, the absence of alternative homes, blackmail of the residents etc., the waterfront communities have taken the government to court and have held a series of protests.

According to Amnesty International, 12 people were wounded in 2009 when security forces fired at demonstrators protesting the slum housing demolition in Rivers State.

Before the current phase of demolition, Governor Amaechi had threatened to use maximum force against the residents who dared challenge the demolition.

Like a war General who wanted to conquer a people, Governor Amaechi roared: “When we want to demolish, the Airforce will deploy helicopters, the Navy will move to the areas with gunboats, while the Army will have its officers and men on the land, to ensure the demolition is effected and to prevent resistance”(Leadership newspaper of Monday June 11, 2012).

A new dimension has been added to the displacement of innocent citizens when armed soldiers and police men invaded Elechi Beach on Monday July 16, 2012 at 3am. These armed soldiers and police men who were sent by the Rivers State government with support from Aso Rock invaded, arrested several youths and set some houses on fire as claimed by some eye witness.

Though, the JTF claimed that they were after criminals who refine stolen petroleum products, their method showed otherwise. The invasion and method is devoid of security intelligence. According to one of the victims of the harassment, Samuel Okoh and reported in the Guardian of Tuesday July 17, 2012: “The police started a mass arrest by 3:00a.m.

Honestly, there was no problem here. There was no incident of violence. When they knocked on my door, my wife and son were startled, but I tried to calm them. When I opened the door for the armed police men, the first thing they asked me was, ‘What do you do for a living’, I replied that I am a taxi driver, showed them my identity card and they left for the next door”.

If really the JTF know the criminals they were looking for, why would they have to ask each person what he or she does for a living, which is a basis for arrest?

According to the same report, a musician, Kufre Sunday, claimed that when the soldiers stormed the waterfront, they picked up some sticks from inside berthed speedboats, dipped them in petrol and then went to a nearby house to light them before returning to where the drums of diesels were stacked and torched them. As the fire started to spread uncontrollably, efforts by some persons to stop the spread of fire were thwarted by the soldiers.

Besides, the government brazenly disregards court processes while carrying out the demolition. For instance, before the state government demolished Njemanze waterfronts on August 28, 2009, the landlords had already sued the government and the next adjourning date was October 23, 2009. Also, the case between the Abonnema Wharf Community and the Rivers State government was still in court when government rolled in its bulldozers.

These poor residents of waterfronts for no fault of theirs live in ghetto-like environment because they have been abandoned and neglected by past and present leaders despite huge resources accruing to the state as an oil rich state. Rivers State is one of the richest states in Nigeria; its 2012 budget is N438 billion with an internally degenerated revenue of about N7 billion monthly.

This shows that Rivers State has the capacity to rebuild the waterfront without displacing thousands of people.

All the government need do is to plan and manage public resources judiciously and democratically, and carry the communities along in the process. But the pursuit of profit and accumulation of wealth at the expense of the working masses is one major reason why the poor will continue to be neglected.

The River State branch of the Democratic Socialist Movement, DSM, hereby calls on the state government to end the ongoing demolition of waterfronts and pay adequate compensation to all affected landlords and tenants.

Mr. TEMPLE MORFORD, a social critic,  wrote from Port-Harcourt, Rivers state.