By JKNewsMedia
TWENTY COASTAL communities in the oil-producing areas of Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo State have threatened to boycott the 2027 general elections unless the Federal and Ondo State governments intervene to protect them from an advancing ocean surge threatening their existence.
JKNewsMedia.com reports that the communities, under the aegis of the Coalition of Ilaje Ravaged Communities, demanded urgent shoreline protection measures, including sea walls and groynes, as well as immediate humanitarian assistance for residents displaced by flooding and ocean surge.
Their warning followed a peaceful protest at the Ilaje Local Government headquarters in Igbokoda, after hundreds of residents held a press conference last Wednesday at Ayetoro, which they described as the community most affected by the crisis.
With advocacy support from Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA), the protesters said the advancing Atlantic Ocean had swallowed large parts of their settlements and created a humanitarian emergency.
The affected communities are Ayetoro, Awoye, Mese, Gbagira, Jiringho, Ilowo, Ilepete, Idiogba, Oroto, Alagbon, Erunona, Olotu, Yaye, Womitenren, Ogboti, Lepe, Ehinmore, Abetobo, Odun-Oyinbo and Abereke.
They said the ocean surge had destroyed hundreds of homes, schools, places of worship, health facilities, fishing grounds, factories and other community infrastructure.
The coalition said Ayetoro, once a prosperous settlement that reportedly loaned money to Nigeria’s Western Region Government, had become the most visible symbol of the devastation, with 85% of the community lost to coastal erosion and ocean surge.
Other communities, it said, now faced a similar fate as the shoreline continued to recede.
Beyond long-term shoreline infrastructure, the communities demanded food, potable water, medicines and temporary shelters for families displaced by flooding and ocean surge.
They also called on the FG to declare the Ilaje coastline a national disaster zone and release emergency intervention funds to address the worsening crisis.
The communities further demanded that the Ondo State Government sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with them and publish a 90-day action plan within 30 days of receiving their demands.
“No project, no vote,” the coalition declared, warning political parties and aspirants that they would no longer take the support of coastal communities for granted.
The protesters said the proposed boycott did not amount to a rejection of democracy but represented a demand for accountability from politicians seeking their votes.
The coalition also lamented that the communities had contributed substantially to Ondo State’s oil-producing status while receiving what it described as inadequate protection from the environmental consequences associated with living along the coast.
“You cannot take 75 per cent of our resources and give us zero per cent protection,” the coalition claimed.
The monarch of Ayetoro, Oba Olorumbe Ojagbohunmi, lamented the scale of the devastation and what he described as years of government neglect.
He said the oil-producing community had lost large parts of its territory to the sea, while oil was still being extracted from areas that once belonged to his family and other community members.
“It has been 20 years since the sea has been encroaching. The people of the community have been writing letters and making passionate appeals that we are experiencing serious environmental challenges, that the sea is coming at an alarming rate towards the residential areas of the community,” Ojagbohunmi said.
“For 10 years now, we have been losing at least 50 buildings every year to the ocean surge. My people have become refugees in their own town.”
Of the community’s 45 streets, only about seven remain, he said, adding that factories, schools and other infrastructure had been lost to the sea.
“In April this year, disaster struck in the middle of the night, destroying the road to the palace and the palace’s staircase. I was held hostage for a week in the palace because there was no way my family and I could climb down from the palace. We are seeking help from wherever we can get it,” Ojagbohunmi added.
He blamed the scale of the problem on government failure and referenced two multibillion-naira shoreline protection contracts awarded by the Federal Government without the work being done.
Ogunlade Olamide, Associate Director of CAPPA, backed the communities’ demand for climate and environmental justice and said governments at the federal, state and local levels had a duty to intervene urgently.
“Within the context of climate justice, environmental accountability and historical liabilities, governments at the federal, state and local levels must act now to protect the Ilaje people, their homes, livelihoods and heritage,” Ogunlade said.
“Communities that have borne the environmental and social costs of reckless resource extraction cannot continue to be met with silence and inaction. Their call is not for charity, but a demand for justice, fairness, accountability and reparation.”
An e-statement signed by Robert Egbe, Media and Communications Officer of CAPPA, said the coalition’s General Coordinator, Comrade Akingboye Thompson, described the crisis as one that could no longer be treated as a routine environmental problem.
“Ilaje coastal communities are facing an existential threat. The Atlantic Ocean is swallowing our land from the sea, and poor drainage is drowning our headquarters from within,” he said.
Thompson described affected residents as “climate refugees in their own country”, noting that many fishermen had lost access to traditional fishing areas while thousands of families displaced by the encroaching sea struggled to find safe places to live.
JKNewsMedia.com also reports that the coalition also drew attention to the worsening flooding in Igbokoda, where it said inadequate drainage had left parts of the town vulnerable during the rainy season.
It called for the immediate construction of a modern drainage network in Igbokoda, arguing that a local government headquarters should not remain vulnerable to annual flooding.
The communities urged the Federal Government, Ondo State Government, Ilaje Local Government Council and relevant agencies to treat the situation as an emergency and begin immediate intervention rather than wait for more communities to disappear.
—
