Edge of Paradise (Conclusion)
Aggrey Road and its surroundings have a feel of a bygone era to them, which is accentuated by buildings typical of the mid-1900s and a network of neatly laid out streets. At one of the multiple intersections on the road, I ask Chika to show me the way to the waterfront. My request puzzles her. “Which one of them?” she asks, looking me straight in the eyes. “They are up to thirty – Nembe Waterside, Ibadan Waterside, Imo Waterside, Enugu Waterside, Abuja Waterside — so you must tell me which one exactly before I can direct you.”
Not willing to let the conversation drag on for too long in the sweltering afternoon heat, I ask her to describe how I can reach any one that is not too far from where we are both standing. “Waterfront is a dangerous place for someone like you who doesn’t know where he is going,” she warns. “If you don’t know the Apian Ways, you may fall into the hands of bad boys.” Slightly alarmed, I ask what she means by ‘Apian Ways’? “Those are the tiny, tiny pathways and short-cuts through the neighbourhood.”
Chika is fair, five-feet tall and has on a fitting red skirt and blouse. Her red picnic box sits on a short stool on a little rented space in front of a furniture showroom, where she sells soft drinks and sachet water. A resident of the Abuja Waterfront, she knows the entire neighbourhood inside out but because she is at work will not be able to show me around. She confirms that the Nembe Waterfront is closer to where we both are, so I tell her to direct me to that one.
“Take the next street and at the end of it turn left, you will see a market. From there you will see the Waterfront. Don’t go too close—it could be risky.” I thank her and go as she has directed. I cross over to the parallel Creek Road within minutes, passing by speedboats and water board engine shops on my way. Just before the market, I turn right and walk down a descending driveway, where I catch a glimpse of the body of water ahead of me. One or two disused canoes lay upturned in the distance in the middle of the river. Further down the road, there is a small military post occupied by three armed military personnel. I read the lettering: ‘Ministry of transport--Bonny, Nembe, Bille Terminal’.
I continue my descent and a short time later come face to face with the rowdiness within. At this point, I sense tenseness in the air, a feeling heightened when I move closer to the Bonny Jetty. It’s easy to see that here is a different world entirely, a hustler’s haven, packed with desperate young men whose survival depend as much on the brisk buying and selling that go on in the quasi-market as it does on the shipment of consumer goods aboard extremely large local boats.
At first all I do is walk leisurely up and down through the three jetties of Bonny, Nembe and Bille, careful not to draw too much attention to myself. Satisfied that there is no need to be apprehensive I return to the Bonny jetty, taking in the unfolding businesses of the day. I watch the first boatload of 20 passengers and two crew members depart in a speed boat, headed for Bonny. They replicate a perfect picture of slaves being rowed away from the Point of No return. On the ground behind me lays a stack of life jackets, which each passenger wears; it carries a warning: “Wear this vest properly – fasten buckles and adjust for strong fit.”
Dozens of other brightly coloured speedboats – with names like Fair lady, Jude, Rojen Marine 1, Solo and Sons marine 1, Ebisco Marine 2, MV Miracle of God marine 2, and Richie Marine 2 -- sit still on the calm water. “They are named after their owners,” a stakeholder tells me. My attention shifts to the embankment we are standing on: there are tens of drums everywhere, one chained to another and oozing hydrocarbon vapour. Knowing that bunkering is common in these parts, my suspicion is that the liquid in the drums might be crude oil. I am wrong: “They contain petrol -- that is what we use for the speedboats,” Ellis, a marine entrepreneur and speedboat owner, clarifies.
Both of us stand facing the murky river. More passengers climb into the speed boats, seated four in a row. “A trip to Bonny costs one thousand naira,” Ellis says. For a journey that lasts no more than an hour, I think that to be rather on the high side. “We burn a lot of fuel on those boats and we also spend a lot on servicing. Much more than that, we have lost about 500 boats to militants in the past eight years. It’s really a challenge to carry on in this business.”
The water is at low ebb now, Ellis explains. Shortly the speed boats would anchor at shore until the water level rises. “In about two hours’ time it would rise and the boats would be ready to sail. It happens like that every day, the high and low tide.”
As I carry on my conversation with Ellis, I notice a group of young men tossing and transferring bags of cement, crates of minerals, packs of sachet water, cartons of biscuits and sacs of foodstuff onto a wooden local boat. Because of its size, engine type and assorted cargo, it travels rather slowly and reaches Bonny in five or six hours. Loading the boat is an everyday activity, one with willing and eager loaders all out to make a living. As one of the hands says, “even death can’t stop it.”
I return to my chat with Ellis, who has more painful stories to share. Last week, he says, three passengers—two ladies and a guy---were seized by militants and taken away into the creeks. They have since not been released. “Only God knows what must have happened to them. The ladies might have been raped,” the Bonny indigene says, a tone of worry in his voice. “This struggle is no longer for the good of the people but for individual gains. Why would they be harming the masses and we are all supposed to be suffering together. My brother we are dying, we are dying.”
In another country where tourism development is priority, this Waterfront would by now support a string of first-rate resorts and spas. The spectre of bad news issuing from here and elsewhere in the city is perhaps why the current administration is pursuing a broad-based urban renewal project. It has decided to demolish the adjoining slum at the Waterfront, relocate the inhabitants and develop the area.
Ceaseless militant activities and inter-ethnic clashes over the past decade had generated bad blood among the different communities in Rivers State, tainting it with a reputation of insecurity. It so happens that in the week I arrive , the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up in November 2007 (by Rt. Honourable Amaechi, the state governor) to hear out complaints from community representatives and thereafter advise on the way forward had rounded up its work and was presenting its findings and recommendations to the public. Head of the Commission Rtd. Justice Kayode Eso blamed all of the state’s woes on five factors: Governance, Politics, Cultism, Chieftaincy and Insurgency.
“On the pleasant side of this story, we have been able to reconcile 15 communities who were, before the reconciliation, at daggers drawn, physically killing and maiming themselves and also devastating their properties,” Justice Eso said. There have been less instances of kidnapping and fatal cult clashes in the capital city in recent weeks; if this holds and coupled with the Greater Port Harcourt Development Authority now in place Port Harcourt looks set to regain its attraction for investors and its long lost status as the Garden City.
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