NAN-ND-2
Fishermen
By John Amieyeofori
Sangama (Rivers), Nov. 6, 2016 ( NAN) Residents of Sangama in Asari-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers have appealed to the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to provide them with fishing implements to enhance their occupation.
The people made the appeal in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Sangama on Sunday.
One of them, Mr Pius Obele, said that fishermen in the community needed the tools, including boats and fishing gears, to enable them to have more catches and boost their source of revenue.
Obele said that lack of fishing implements had hampered the operation of the fishermen and had led to inadequate supply of fish to the people of the area.
Another fisherman, Mr Manners Owus, said that if NDDC supplied the materials, it would encourage more people in the area to go into fishing thereby reducing unemployment in the community.
Owus urged the commission to grant the people’s request as part of efforts in the diversification of the nation’s economy.
For Mrs Ada James, supplying fishing gears to Sangama people by the commission would mean more jobs for indigenes.
James added that there was no presence of NDDC in the community, and that providing the fishing implements would be a way for the commission to register its presence in the community.
Another resident, Mr Francis Soala, lamented that NDDC had not provided any infrastructure for the people of Sangama since the commission was established.
He stressed that the commission had been executing projects in many communities in the state, but had not sited any in the Sangama.
Soala therefore appealed to the commission “to register its presence in the community for the first time by providing fishing gears for our people’’. (NAN)
JA/EMO/OPI
Edited by Ejike Obeta and Olisa Ifeajika