Sand dredgers along the River Niger at Onitsha have staged a protest
against the non-payment of compensation to them by government for
vacating their sites for the erection of the Second Niger Bridge.
Members of the Dredgers Owners Association of Anambra State took to
the streets in Onitsha to drive home their demand that they should be
factored into the payment of compensation by the Federal Government.
Addressing journalists on Wednesday, the Chairman, Mr. Gilbert
Udemadu, said they have discovered that certain group was plotting to
deceive the Federal Government and collect the compensation due to the
dredgers.
They said the fact that dredgers from the Asaba end of the Niger have
been paid their compensation showed that they too were entitled to
theirs now.
Udemadu said members of DOAAS were invited to a meeting in November
last year by a consulting firm, Aurecon Nigeria Limited to discuss the
modalities for payment of the compensation for their property that
will be affected by the bridge project.
But to their surprise, they were sidelined and a foreign list of
dredgers without any property around the site was adopted.
"We were asked to submit the list of our members who were affected by
the project. While we were still harmonizing the list, another group
went behind us to submit the list to the consulting firm," he said.
They accused some key officers at the federal ministry of Works of
trying to play pranks with the genuine members of DOAAS by adopting
the strange list submitted by one Gilbert Obi, the Chairman of DOAAS
Board of Trustees.
They called on the Federal Ministry of Works to stop any further
payment of compensation pending the time the matter will be resolved.
However Obi denied the charges against him. He explained that the
Federal government had mapped out persons or groups affected by the
construction of second Niger Bridge and denied any involvement in the
process of selecting the beneficiaries.
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