By Uche Usim
GORIOLA Tunji was a successful fisherman for over two decades. He plied the Ikorodu waters and part of the Lagos Island doing commercial fishing. But in the last five years, the once lucrative trade has become a shadow of itself. His fishing area has been largely ravaged by water hyacinth, a fast growing species of sea weed that clogs propellers of fishing boats, thus destroying them in the process. The dreaded plant also makes swimming, diving and search and rescue operations tedious whenever a marine accident occurs in the area it is found.
The University of Florida’s Centre for Aquatic and Invasive Plants describes water hyacinth as an invasive species that was introduced into Africa as an ornamental plant, which thrives in polluted environments. It has the capability to completely clog the waterways in which it grows, making it nearly impossible to navigate by fishing boats. In recent years, it has found its way into the Niger River, choking out both sunlight and oxygen to marine organisms that live there.
However, Tunji, in a chat with Daily Sun, said he has lost two engines in the last 18 months to water hyacinth. “I lost two 75hp engines, and each of them costs over N2.5m. My boats are grounded because I wonder where I will get that amount of money to replace them. Banks are not lending as before and the economy is down. Fishing is hindered by water hyacinth. We can’t fish like we used to. We’re practically out of business. It’s terrible. The areas government clean up by harvesting the weeds and removing the wrecks are those routes of large commercial vessels that call at Nigerian ports. The routes and areas used by the masses for fishing is not a priority. We need help. Government should help clean the ocean and harvest these devastating plants”, he said
However, the story of Kester Paul, an exporter of farm produce living in Delta State, is different. For him, marine and land pollution is the greatest challenge of Ndokwa, the community he buys his produce from.
According to him, destruction of farmlands as a result of oil exploration has been the bane of the community and many others.
“When the oil spills, it percolates deep into the earth destroying all nutrients needed to keep crops alive. So, we can’t farm. We can’t really fish. Pollution everywhere. These two are our main occupation. With farmlands destroyed and little compensation paid, youths have embraced crime. They’ve become illegal oil bunkerers, pipeline vandals and kidnappers. They have even come to see these crimes as more financially rewarding than farming. But had the farmlands suffered minimum damage, perhaps they would have been farmers”, he explained.
Aniete Abang on his own is a boat transporter who shuttles between Conor Waterside (Port Harcourt) and Nembe in Bayelsa State. The hitherto two-hour trip has been elongated to three hours, no thanks to the vast presence of water hyacinth and other dreaded sea weeds that operators have to meander through on a regular basis.
The aforementioned scenarios are part of the challenges plaguing some Nigerian communities, where the people’s existence are currently under threat. Farming, fishing and water transport through which they eke their livelihood are on the verge of collapse and will economically paralyse them if urgent help does not come their way.
Nigeria is blessed with abundant natural resources; but what is worrisome is how prolonged government neglect, poor maintenance culture and blind politics seem to have turned these blessings into plagues.
For maritime endowments, Nigeria boasts of a vast coastline of 10,000km and navigable inland waterways of 3,000km. But industry records show that some navigable channels are littered with wrecks of unserviceable vessels further made worse by water hyacinth.
Consequently, hundreds of lives are lost annually due to boat mishaps caused by the wrecks.
This is aside the daily abuse of the oceans by oil spills, which has recently been heightened by the activities of the Niger/Delta Avengers, a militia group that blows up multi-million dollar oil pipes and leaving the contents spilled into the seas thereby destroying the marine ecosystem.
Threat
According to oceanographers and Marine biologists, Nigeria’s fishing industry generally is under threat as a result of the water hyacinth invasion and frightening increase in water pollution via oil and aerosol wastes.
However, boat operators in the southern part of Nigeria say water hyacinth invasion is a seasonal menace.
The Chairman, Tarzan Jetty and Boat Services, Ganiyu Sekoni Balogun, in a telephone chat with Daily Sun said: “There is no water hyacinth in Ijede where we operate. It’s actually a seasonal thing. At times, you see them everywhere. And at times, they dry up. But water hyacinth is not what a boat operator wants to run into. It destroys the engines. An engine of a boat like the 250hp is worth over N12 million. Imagine that”, he said.
Some agriculturists say the pollution and water hyacinth have reduced commercial fishing, thus making it increasingly hard for rural dwellers to enjoy diets rich in proteins from sea foods.
The fishing industry, generally, is an essential part of Nigeria’s sustainability because it provides the much-needed protein and nutrients for people.
With the rapid increase in the country’s population, resulting in higher demand for fish, experts say Nigeria could be in serious dietary crisis because oil pollution, sea weeds, wrecks and other challenges have caused a sharp decline in fish population because they are depleted faster than they are able to restore their number. They also say the scarcity of foreign exchange(forex), general economic downturn and poor purchasing power make imported fish expensive and outside the reach of the masses.
The Niger River, according to Marine biologists, is an important ecosystem that needs to be protected because it is home to 36 families and nearly 250 species of fish, of which 20 are endemic, meaning they are found nowhere else on earth.
On the other hand, oil spills in populated areas often spread out over a wide area, destroying crops and aquacultures through contamination of the groundwater and soils. The consumption of dissolved oxygen by bacteria feeding on the spilled hydrocarbons also contributes to the death of fish. In agricultural communities, often a year’s supply of food can be destroyed instantaneously. Because of the careless nature of oil operations in the Delta, the environment is growing increasingly uninhabitable.
Intervention
Recently, President Muhammadu Buhari, through Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, flagged off the cleaning of the Ogoni land, an area devastated by oil spill. The soothing news is that if the cleaning takes place, agriculture and fishing can come back to the oil-polluted region.
Moreso, the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), the agency charged with the removal of derelict wrecks, water hyacinth and other harmful weeds, said has acquired an aquatic water weed harvesting vessel which is docked in a private jetty in Lagos. The salvage vessel is mainly used to remove the water hyacinth and alligator weed in rivers and lakes, and it can also collect floating garbage on the water surface.
While the acquisition may be commendable, maritime stakeholders however, insist that NIWA focuses on only the channels used by large container vessels and oil tankers, thus neglecting other channels used by fishermen, boat transporters and other light sea crafts.
They also say the vessel does not cover the south-south waters where sea weeds are making transportation by boat a nightmare.
But, the Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr Dakuku Peterside, at a recent interface with Maritime journalists said the agency’s vision was to ensure that shipping activities have minimum impact on the environment.
“To do that, we want to be more vigilant. Currently, we monitor what the vessels that ply our waterways do. But in addition, we want to monitor the vessels that patrol our coastal areas and the entire economic zone on a 24-hour basis to ensure that nobody damages our environment in the course of carrying out economic activities. Of course, that again is one of the IMO instruments. Our objective is to attain at least 90 per cent compliance in enforcement of those IMO instruments. So for me, we intend to move from where we are now to 95 per cent of compliance with the IMO instruments that govern the marine environment. One key thing we intend to do is to get vessels to patrol our waterways and territorial waters to ensure that there is no damaging effect”, he said.
Meanwhile, a maritime analyst and publisher of The Journal of Freight and Energy, Ismail Aniemu, has urged federal agencies charged with cleaning up the seas to live up to their bidding.
He also advised that NIWA should urgently extend its weed harvesting operations to the South-South region where boat operators and water hyacinth are fiercely competing for space.
“I know NIWA officials may say they’re scared of being kidnapped because of the frightening terrain, but the operation can be done with full military cover so that people in the region who are predominantly fishermen can ply their trade”, he said.
Health challenges
Industry records indicate that an estimated five to 10 per cent of the Nigerian mangrove ecosystems have been wiped out by oil spillage. The rainforest which previously occupied some 7,400 km² of land has disappeared as well.
People in the affected areas complain about health issues including breathing problems and skin lesions; many have lost basic human rights such as health, access to food, clean water, and an ability to work.
On January 30, 2013, a Dutch court ruled that Shell is liable for the pollution in the Niger Delta.
The delta which covers 20,000 km² within wetlands of 70,000 km² was formed primarily by sediment deposition. Home to 20 million people and 40 different ethnic groups, this floodplain makes up 7.5 per cent of Nigeria’s total land mass. It is the largest wetland and maintains the third-largest drainage basin in Africa. The Delta’s environment can be broken down into four ecological zones: coastal barrier islands, mangrove swamp forests, freshwater swamps, and lowland rainforests.
This incredibly well-endowed ecosystem contains one of the highest concentrations of biodiversity in the world. In addition to supporting abundant flora and fauna, it also has an arable terrain that can sustain a wide variety of crops, lumber or agricultural trees, and more species of freshwater fish than any ecosystem in West Africa.