**** NGO Urges NDDC to Complete Sandfilling Contract Awarded Since 2002

Oil rich Kokodiagbene Community,  Gbaramatu kingdom in Warri South West Local Government Area of Delta State on Monday raised an alarm that erosion was sacking their community.

Consequently, they expressed fear that the community might soon be washed off and that there wont be anywhere known as Kokodiagbene on the map of Warri South West Local government and Delta State as a whole.

Chairman of Kokodiagbene, Comrade Sheriff Mulade raised the alarm at a sensitisation programme to commemorate this year’s “World Environment Day” put together by a Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) Center for Peace and Environmental Justice (CEPEJ).

He enjoined the Federal, Delta State Governments, intervention agencies to come to the aid of the community and save the people of the area from being sacked by erosion.

Comrade Mulade recalled that Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), aware of the threat of the erosion to the community, awarded a contract for the reclamation of the community in 2002 but was abandoned since then.

“This great oil and gas producing community is being washed off. Where we are now, to save the community from extinction was awarded by NDDC in 2002 but was abandoned. It was reawarded and abandoned again thereby leaving the people and community at risk of extinction.

“The community waterfront has been washed away. The entire community is being pushed back because the main island of the community has been washed away”, Comrade Mulade who doubles as the National Coordinator of CEPEJ lamented.

One of the elders in the community, Pa. John Olloh, a retired Army Colonel, appealed to governments at various levels to come to the aid of their people by reclaiming their land.