Regeneration plans for a waterfront area are likely to involve evictions and further marginalisation of its residents, writes Jody Clarke
MORE THAN 200,000 Nigerians may be forced from their homes, Amnesty International says in a new report, if the Rivers State government in the south of the country goes ahead with a series of planned demolitions and evictions in the city of Port Harcourt.
The forced evictions on the waterfront of the city, which the government argues are necessary to implement the city’s redevelopment programme, will plunge hundreds of thousands of already vulnerable people further into poverty, claims the rights group.
“The government should halt the waterfront evictions until they ensure the human rights of these people are protected,” said Colm O’Gorman, executive director of Amnesty International Ireland.
“The government must make every effort to identify alternatives to evictions, using them only as a last resort.”
In 2007, South African engineering and construction firm Arcus Gibb was contracted to develop a “master plan” for Port Harcourt. The plan, launched in April 2009, is intended to guide the development of the city for the next 50 years. Central is the overhauling of the waterfront area.
The Rivers State government argues this area is home to many criminals, including militants terrorising the oil-rich Niger Delta. In August, they announced the waterfront area would be demolished.
However, community activists argue the plans have been drawn up behind closed doors and they have not been consulted on the issue.
They say the main reason for demolition is that the local government is embarrassed that there are so many poor people living in the centre of Nigeria’s fifth-largest city.
“The government says that there are criminals in the area. But are children and old people criminals? It is the duty of the government to fish our criminals, not to dish out collective punishment,” said Samuel Fubaroa, a human rights activist in Port Harcourt.
“It is not workable. Where will these people all go?”
Although compensation is being offered to property owners in the areas set to be demolished, tenants receive no similar payment, even though they make up the majority of the population in the affected areas.
Rights activists have called for the establishment of a resettlement plan to deal with the hundreds of thousands who will be affected.
Forced demolitions and evictions are common in Nigeria.
In February 2009, 40-50 buildings and other structures were destroyed in Port Harcourt, according to UN-Habitat, the United Nations agency for human settlements.
After expressing concern that the majority of residents affected by the demolitions had been forcibly evicted from their homes and properties, it called on the Rivers State government to declare an immediate moratorium on demolitions. However, seven days later, on August 28th, 2009, Njemanze, a waterfront settlement that is home to 13,000 people, was demolished.
Between 2003 and 2007, more than 800,000 people were forcibly removed from informal settlements in the capital Abuja as the government implemented the “Abuja Master Plan” of urban development, says the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions.
In Lagos, the country’s largest city, a “beautification project” is also putting millions at risk, the centre claims.