For generations, the people of Bonny Island in Rivers State have defined themselves by the sea. Fishing is not just a livelihood β it is identity, ancestry, and community. But today, the fishermen of Bonny say that sea is dying, and with it, a way of life that stretches back centuries.
Chief Alozie Horsfall, 71, has fished the waters around Bonny for over 50 years. He sits by his dugout canoe, mending a net, and speaks with a quiet grief that no policy document can capture: "When I was young, you could drop a line anywhere in these waters and pull up fish. Now we go for days and come back empty. The water looks different. It smells. The fish are gone."
Scientific studies conducted by researchers from the University of Port Harcourt confirm what the fishermen have long known. Hydrocarbon contamination in the Bonny River and surrounding estuaries has reached levels many times above safe limits, directly attributed to decades of oil spills from pipelines and facilities operated by multiple petroleum companies in the area.
The fishermen are not passive victims. The Bonny Fishermen's Cooperative has filed two legal suits against oil companies, documented over 200 spill incidents in the past decade, and collaborated with environmental NGOs to produce evidence reports submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council.
But justice moves slowly β and fish stocks do not wait for court judgements. Many younger residents have already left Bonny for Port Harcourt and Lagos, unwilling to inherit a broken sea. Those who remain are both the last defenders of a tradition and its most urgent witnesses.
