Multinationals operating in Bonny Island, Rivers State have been accused of being responsible for the perennial flooding debacle being experienced in the area just as the Bonny Improvement Association (BIA) has called on them to partner with the Bonny Local Government to canalize the island community.

The Bonny Improvement Association (BIA) Port Harcourt chapter, rising from its July 2020 meeting, raised alarm over the incessant flooding situation in Bonny LGA, saying this was due to the construction of embankments along the shores of the Bonny River by Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited (MPNU), Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), amongst others to protect their facilities there.

The association, in a statement signed by Chairman of the BIA Port Harcourt, Professor Sodienye Abere, stated that the IOCs operating in Bonny were weaning sand from the Bonny Channel and reinforcing the peripheries of their facilities in the island thus blocking the natural drains taking flood waters out into the sea.

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“The Bonny Improvement Association (BIA) Port Harcourt rose from its July 2020 meeting with the following resolutions:

• That Bonny Island is sinking and so below mean sea level (MSL), the knowledge and reality of which the IOCs in Bonny capitalize on to ensure raising all their structures several meters above ground level. All the foreshore of the various properties in use by the IOCs have been filled with sand weaned from the Bonny channel. Bonny now appears as a BOWL. There is constant flooding on the island because the natural drains into the sea have been blocked by the embankment along MPNL, NLNG, NPA and SPDC facilities.  

Action:

BIA calls for immediate and urgent canalization of the island to allow for free flow of water at all levels. A prototype of what Holland and Netherlands exhibit. These canals can be used as waterways communication in addition to solving the problem of flooding.”  

• Cost of living in Bonny is very high, cost of landed properties development and maintenance in Bonny is the highest in the State. Every building item including sand and even food items are imported from Port Harcourt or Akwa Ibom State resulting in the average livelihood terrain being grossly unequal for residents of Bonny relative to the rest of the State. It is easier to record personal development outside Bonny than to achieve it in Bonny within the same time frame. Retirees stay put at Lagos, Abuja, Kaduna, and Port Harcourt than to return home.  

Action:

There should be establishment of cottage production/fabricating industries to properly engage our citizens. IOCs operations should be located on the Island. Food and organic treatment plant should be built and manned by residents in Bonny. The IOCs and the LG should engage our people in a Public Private Partnership (PPP) to remove the funding hurdle.”

Prof. Abere called on Bonny people in Port Harcourt to utilize the opportunity of the Bonny Improvement Association (BIA) meetings to cross-pollinate ideas for moving Bonny Kingdom forward, saying the challenges being faced in the area require broad-based synergy and strategic inputs to solve them.