This is Port Harcourt, the Garden City of Rubble
Ohaeri,SERAC
In a manner reminiscent of the infamous July 1990 Maroko forced evictions, thousands of poor inhabitants of Njemanze waterfront community, Port Harcourt, have at the peak of torrential rains of the coastal delta region of Nigeria, been forcibly evicted, rendered homeless, and pushed deeper into poverty. The intrigues, planning and execution methods of the Njemanze demolitions tells a moving story that evokes imageries of a rudderless ship in an open sea, sailing stealthily to a damning fate. The storyline seamlessly weaves what would have been the good, the not so good, and potentially the nastiest that is to happen since the waterfronts demolitions saga began.
August 28, 2009, 7. 00 a.m. local time, on a rainy Friday morning, SERAC staff was in Njemanze waterfront community to gain first-hand information regarding the scale and potential impacts of the highly probable evictions, and to conduct an evidence-based assessment of the due process aspects and processes in the handling of waterfronts land acquisition and compensation..
While support for the exercise has been vociferous in some quarters, so too have the criticisms and angst deepened, especially with respect to the state's continued failure to advance a credible explanation for the massive demolitions and forced evictions of waterfront residents.
Suffice it to say that the RSG blew a golden opportunity to provide a first-of-its-kind best practice example of urban development in Nigeria. The flow of the waterfronts storyline pulsates along zigzag lines, lacking consistency in its rhythm and tempo. With the will to compensate landlords clearly out of doubt, together with the gargantuan compensation budgetary framework earmarked for the project, it becomes increasingly difficult to establish why the state will hesitate to run a fine race to finish line. What, who and why did the state willfully shut its eyes to the provisions of its own state urban development law that ought to, as a matter of priority, drive the urban renewal agenda? Whatever happened to the fundamental rights and freedoms enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution, which the Rivers State governor swore to uphold and defend? What led the plethora of state and national laws safeguarding the rights of all Nigerians - landlords, tenants, sub-lessors, licensees and squatters alike - to bow to the pressure of state machinations? ..
Victoria Ohaeri, Emmanuel Ukozor
Reporting from Port Harcourt, Rivers State: