CUTTING OFF ONDO & DELTA OIL-RICH COASTAL COMMUNITIES FROM COASTAL ROAD IS AN INSULT TO ITSEKIRIS, ILAJES AND IJAWS SAYS MRS TSAYE MENE

The Convener Warri Reclaimation Thrust and Former National Executive of the Itsekiri National Youths Council (INYC) has condemned in strong terms the decision to divert the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road project away from the coastline after Lagos and Ogun States.

The Niger Delta leader, *Comr Tsaye Mene*, described the decision as an insult to the Itsekiri, Ilaje and Ijaws people whose oil-rich coastal communities in Ondo, Delta and Bayelsa provide most of the resources used in funding the project, and a complete destruction of the major purpose of the Coastal Road.

“It is shocking and insulting that the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road, which was originally designed to follow the coastline through Ondo, Delta and Bayelsa oil-rich coastal communities, will now detour inland through Edo State to connect to the East-West Road.

This decision has largely destroyed the major purpose of the Coastal Road, which is to open up the coastal, oil-producing, and most marginalized communities in Nigeria and bring development, industry, and hope to people who have suffered decades of neglect despite producing the wealth of the nation.

The Itsekiri,Ilaje and Ijaw coastal communities are the backbone of this nation’s economy. To use our resources to build a road and then deliberately bypass our communities is the highest form of injustice. It is unacceptable.

Mr. Umahi may describe it as a wonderful engineering decision by Mr. President, but for us on the coast, it is a terrible social and economic decision that will deepen poverty, insecurity, and the feeling of exclusion.

We are appealing to Mr. President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to do the needful and keep his promise to the people. A Coastal Road must follow the coast. It must not become another East-West Road rehabilitation project rebranded as Coastal Road.

We stand with our brothers and sisters of Ilaje in Ondo State and demand a return to the original coastal alignment from Araromi, Ugbonla through Awoye, Ilepete, Ikorigho, Obe-Rewoye, Odonla to Ogheye, Orere, Escravos(Ugborodo) , Escravos terminal to Forcados in Warri to Burutu in Delta State. It moves from Burutu to the Bayelsa Border down to Nembe area. That is the true Coastal Road.”

Mr President Bola if this new agenda is allowed, It abandons the very communities that suffers sea incursion, lack road but Produce the oil which funds this all important project which promises to be a road that opens up the coast for the coastal people and not rehabilitation of the East-West Road.