Samuel Oyadongha
15 July 2008
For residents of the Ovom slum some distance away from the new Judiciary Complex and the on-going Bayelsa State government owned Amusement Park, this is certainly not the best of time especially with the daily heavy downpour.
No thanks to the bulldozers of the State Environmental Sanitation Authority, which were yesterday let loose, bringing down all structures described as illegal by the state government on its trail.
Although the state government had through the environmental sanitation authority warned residents of the sprawling slum mainly inhabited by prostitutes and okada operators among others to relocate forthwith from the area but the dispatch with which its bulldozers moved in to pull down the shanties and other solid structures caught many of the residents napping.
Many of the inhabitants of the area especially the okada riders and other artisans had gone out in search of their daily bread when the men of the state environmental sanitation authority backed by heavily armed security men swooped on the area.
This reporter who visited the area observed that properties worth several hundreds of thousands were destroyed by rampaging bulldozers of the state government while those who were lucky to be at home were so terrified that they stood their distance and watched in awe as the machine trampled on what was once their home.
Some of those who spoke to Vanguard lamented that they lost all they have laboured for in the last five years.
They dismissed claims that they were duly informed about the demolition saying, "What would have made us to stay put if we were actually given advance notice of the planned demolition. As you can see most of us are not at home when the bulldozers were brought in clear to what government considered as slum which incidentally is our home."
A man who claimed to be a landlord in the area said he bought the land on which he built his apartment at the cost of N500, 000 five years ago from the land owners only for government to destroy the building he had struggled to erect with all his life savings.
"Where do they (government) want me and my family to start from," the father of two who said he has been living on proceeds from rent collected from his tenants lamented.
As at press time, some residents of the area were making frantic effort to salvage what they could of their belongings from the rubbles.
But an official of the State Environmental Sanitation Authority who spoke anonymously said government was compelled to demolish all the illegal structures in the area as they were not in line with the Yenagoa master plan.
Besides, he said girls of easy virtue and miscreants have taken over the area thereby making mockery of government avowed determination to make the area a tourist destination.
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