Ayetoro Is Bleeding, Don’t Wait For Committee – Faduyile Tells World Leaders At COP31
By Steve Ovirih.
The Senator representing Ondo South Senatorial District, Distinguished Senator Prof. Dayo Faduyile, OON, has taken the cries of the vanishing coastal communities of Ondo State to the global stage, declaring at COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, that Ayetoro is bleeding and the world must act now.
Speaking on Tuesday at the Nigeria Pavilion, Blue Zone, Antalya EXPO Center, during Day 1 of the event tagged “Saving the Vanishing Coast: The Just Transition for an Oil-Producing Shore”, Senator Faduyile, a medical doctor by profession, said the time for committees and communiques was over.
“I have spent most of my working life as a doctor. In my profession, we are taught that when a patient is bleeding, you do not wait for a committee. You act, and you act now. Ayetoro is bleeding,” the Senator declared to a riveted audience of development partners, diplomats and climate experts.
Painting a grim picture of the historic town, Faduyile revealed that about 80 per cent of buildings in Ayetoro have been lost to the sea, with homes, schools, health facilities, places of worship and traditional institutions gone under water, while families have been displaced and fishermen stripped of their livelihoods.
He told the gathering that on October 22, he brought a motion to the floor of the Senate on the urgent need to save Ayetoro and other coastal communities, and the Senate spoke with one voice.
According to him, the Senate called on the Federal Government, through the Federal Ministry of Environment and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), to work with the Ondo State Government and OSOPADEC on a comprehensive and properly funded shoreline protection programme, called for a transparent review of past and ongoing shoreline contracts in Ayetoro, asked NEMA to bring humanitarian relief to those affected, and urged the Federal Government to seek international climate adaptation finance for the coast.
“That last resolution is the reason I am proud to stand in this pavilion today. The Senate has spoken at home. Now Ayetoro must be heard here, at COP31,” Faduyile said.
The Senator commended the Executive Chairman of OSOPADEC, Prince Olabiyi Olaleye Poroye, for bringing the coast to Antalya, not only with a problem but with a plan, and also acknowledged Hon. Oluwatoyin Allen, Chairman of the House Committee on OSOPADEC, panelists Ms Anita Otubu and Ms Deborah Fadeyi, and other stakeholders.
To development partners, he issued a passionate plea: “The communities of Ilaje and Ese-Odo are not asking for pity. They are asking for partnership.”
He assured that he would continue to use the legislative oversight of the Senate to follow every resolution through, so that whatever support comes to the coast reaches the people it is meant for.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the people of Ayetoro once built their own boats and generated their own light. With your partnership, they can do it again,” he concluded.
