By Tony Erha<\/p>\n
The misfiring governor of Edo State, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, had downplayed
\nthe revocation order of about 13,750 hectares of ancestral high forest
\nlands, belonging to unfortunate Edo rural communities and folks, who
\nvoted him into power. Instead, he has forever handed the land on a
\nplatter to Okomu Oil Palm Company Plc., a foreign-based plantation firm,
\nmasterminded by a delinquent Dr. Graham Hefer, its Managing Director and
\nSouth African immigrant.<\/p>\n
Obaseki, by so doing, aptly lives up to his nickname of \u2018Wake and See
\nGovernor\u2019 and a manipulator of the very poor; as he unilaterally
\ntraded off the vast lands from the Owan Forest Reserve of Owan forest
\nzone and the Okomu Forest Reserve, respectively. This is notwithstanding
\nthat it is from the same multinational Okomu Plc the lands were
\noriginally revoked, by the decision-making Executive Council of the
\nimmediate past administration of ex-Governor Adams Oshiomhole, of which
\nObaseki himself, was an integral\u00a0 officer.<\/p>\n
In response to public outcries, government then explained the reason the
\nsaid revocation order was needed. It was stated in \u201cThe Edo State
\nGovernment of Nigeria Gazette, No.16 Vol.19 (page 48 \u2013 50, published
\non 05th November, 2015- that\u00a0 the Forestry (as amended) Law of 2002 had
\nrevoked the \u201c\u2026Illegal sale and transfer of land approved for Iyayi
\nGroups of Companies, for regeneration in Government Forest Reserves, to
\nsecond and third parties; and \u201cCommercialization of the Areas
\nde-reserved\u2026.\u201d.<\/p>\n
Affirming the revocation order, Edo State Government also wrote a
\nletter, dated April 18, 2016 (Ref: GH\/COS.58\/156) to the headstrong
\nOkomu Plc.\u2019s boss, warning the firm to vacate the land and stop
\nplanting on the land it has bulldozed.\u00a0 Hefer and Okomu Plc. also
\nignored the directives for it to conduct a mandatory Environmental
\nImpact Assessment (EIA) study on the entire lands, following a letter to
\nits Managing Director by the Environment Minister, dated 22nd
\nSeptember, 2015 (Ref: No. FMEnv\/EA\/123:271?Vol. 1\/28). It had started
\nbulldozing about two years earlier than on January, 2014, when the
\nletter was written.<\/p>\n
Flouting the revocation order and mandatory directive from the Minister
\nfor Environment, Hefer goaded his company to grab the over 36,000 ha
\nfrom the rarest two lowland rainforest reserves, from which a mere
\n13,750 ha of the diverse and rich biodiversity was bulldozed down to
\nreplace a mono-crop oil palm plantation.<\/p>\n
Imperatively, the critical stakeholders and the mass of concerned
\ncitizens of the state needed to \u2018gird their loins\u2019 and rebuff the
\narrogance and impunity with which Governor Obaseki, continues to grab
\nfrom poor Edo villagers their God-given inheritances and give to the few
\nrich land grabbers, particularly through his exploitative Memorandum of
\nUnderstanding (MoU), without the due process of involving the local
\ncommunities, the original owners of the lands, upon which the projects
\nare premised.<\/p>\n
If not checked, the abnormality could degenerate into avoidable and
\ncalamitous crisis like unmitigated food shortages, environmental
\ndestabilization, acute livelihood losses, crimes escalation and
\nprotracted inter-communal battles.\u00a0 More so, where the lands have
\ncommonly been used by the various local communities, the depletion by
\nObaseki, is beginning to result in scarcity of farmlands and attendant
\ncrises, in the face of increasing population growth of the locals and
\nexternal land users.<\/p>\n
The over 30 affected forest communities of the Owan forest zone,
\nencompassing the three-in-one forest reserves of Owan, Ehor and
\nIueleha\/Ora\/Ozalla, respectively, were shocked to their bone marrow,
\nwhen in January, 2014, Hefer brought the bulldozers, clearing down
\nstanding forest and crops belonging to the locals at the Oke-Irhue,
\nOdighi, and Odiguete villages\u2019 fringes of the forest zone.<\/p>\n
The bulldozers had decimated the locals, with acute poverty, hunger,
\ndesperation and failure to carry on with their usual lifestyles. The
\nloss of the forest covers also exposes them to tougher environmental
\nconditions, with the extermination of their traditional places of
\nworship and sources of water.\u00a0 The impacted communities spread across
\nthree local government areas of Ovia North East, Owan West and Uhunmwode
\ninclude: Odighi,\u00a0 \u00a0 Odeguetue, Uhiere, Owan, Agbanikaka, Oke-Irhue,
\nOrhua, Ekpan, Umokpe, Agudezi, Ozalla and Igbira Camp. Others include:
\nUhonmora, Eme-Ora, Atoruru, Ogbetuo, Ugubezi, Sabogida-Ora,\u00a0 Oke-Ora,
\nAvbiosi, Uzebba, Agoshodin and Sobe, etc.<\/p>\n
The Owan forest zone has about 400,000 inhabitants and over 75,000 able
\nbodied users and over 10,000 other able bodied external users, who
\ndepend on it for farming, logging, woodwork, hunting, medicine,
\ncollection of non-timber products and sources of water, etc. The land is
\nrare and of high biodiversity concentration, part of which had long been
\nearmarked as an extension of the globally-acclaimed Okomu National Park.<\/p>\n
From Okomu forest zone, Okomu Plc. had also grabbed most of the park\u2019s
\nbuffers, thus endangering an already fragile ecosystem. The company
\nrefuses to relinquish the revoked land and thousands of more ha it has
\nforcibly acquired, without authentic EIA study. The Okomu villagers are
\nalso at the mercy of the almighty Okomu Plc. and receive their share of
\nthe bulldozer treatment, as they face ejection from the land.<\/p>\n
Hefer\u2019s intent is to introduce on Edo-Nigerian soil the oppression,
\nthought to have been outlawed in his Apartheid country. A Hefer
\ngone-gaga had severally mocked the aggrieved villagers to go to hell and
\nthat there was nothing they could do to get their land back, because he
\nhas the governor and government in his pocket. This is, indeed, a
\ndisdain for Nigerians as they dare not try that in Hefer\u2019s South
\nAfrica, where Xenophobic attacks against defenceless Nigerians and other
\nAfricans have become a common\u00a0 expression in the Nelson Madela\u2019s
\ncountry.<\/p>\n
An environment and people-friendly government under Oshiomhole, made it
\npublic knowledge that it was an aberration for the vast land areas to be
\nsold to A & Hatman Company Ltd (a firm belonging to notable politician,
\nChief Anthony Anenih), who as a middleman, bought it from the Iyayi
\nGroup of Companies, belonging to Mr. Iyayi Efionayi, an Edo-based
\nmagnate. Chief Anenih and Mr. Iyayi, the men at the centre of the
\ndubious land deal, died at the same period, not too long ago.<\/p>\n
Whereas, the vast lands were given, free of charge, by the Edo State
\ngovernment, under former Chief Lucky Igbinedion, to Iyayi, solely for
\nregeneration, dubious Certificates of Occupancies (C of O) were procured
\nthrough the backdoor, under Igbinedion, which aided the illegal sales
\nbetween the three organizations, with several billions of Naira changing
\nhands. That was after over 40 years of excessive and gainful logging of
\nthe same forest lands by Iyayi.<\/p>\n
Hefer and his company were cunning enough to wait till the expiration of
\nthe tenure of \u2018an uncompromising Oshiomhole\u2019s government\u2019 to get a
\ncompromising Governor Obaseki to undermine the revocation order and give
\nthe rampaging Okomu Plc. and its South African boss the elasticity to
\ncarry out grave impunity and heinous crime, unknown in the history of
\nthe heartbeat state.<\/p>\n
This, Obaseki worsened by going to carry out official opening ceremony
\nof the Okomu Plc. Extension II Oil Palm Plantation, premised on the
\ncommunity\u2019s land, which he had helped to revoke few years back. A
\ntactless and exploitative Obaseki, on the occasion, had promised to cede
\nmore land areas to the land-grabbing company, to the detriment of the
\nlocals, the original owners of the lands, who he holds the land for, as
\na trustee.<\/p>\n
This was before he had avoided all the petitions written to him to
\nprevail on Okomu Plc., on the matters, directly by the aggrieved
\ncommunities, particularly by the civil society\u2019s Coalition Against
\nLandgrabbing and Deforestation (CALD). While Obaseki refused to honour
\nhis promises to invite the impacted communities and CALD for a meeting,
\nas the Oshiomhole\u2019s government had honourably done, Obaseki had had
\nfrequent meetings in his office, with Okomu Plc. and its South African
\nboss. During a huge street protest taken to Governor Obaseki, in his
\noffice, by CALD, supported by the Environmental Rights Action\/Friends of
\nthe Earth Nigeria (ERA\/FoEN), Obaseki refused to address the protesters.<\/p>\n
For about two decades, when Dr. Hefer became the company\u2019s boss, he
\nhas let hell loose upon the host communities and locals of the Okomu
\nforest enclave, in Ovia South Local Government Area of the state. Here,
\nin the bowel of the once largest but now most depleted rainforest
\nreserves in Nigeria, with Okomu Plc. as the greatest plunderer, the
\ncompany has its, headquarters, a giant processing industry and vast oil
\npalm and rubber plantations.<\/p>\n
Hefer is a tempestuous slave-driver who has notoriety for being
\nnicknamed \u201cHell Fire\u201d by his workers. The bulling South African, in
\n2010, once ordered Nigerian soldiers, who beat up and detained top Edo
\ngovernment officers, for \u2018daring\u2019 to carry out simple official
\nduties in his company\u2019s headquarters.\u00a0 With his slipshod and
\ndehumanizing operations in Edo State, he unduly militarizes the host
\ncommunities of Okomu and Owan forest enclaves, with a platoon of men in
\nsoldier and mobile police uniforms, who are at his beck and call. While
\nhe uses them to enforce his seizure of the land, they also carry out
\ndeadly duties, like forcing the Okomu indigenes to carry body passes and
\nrestrictions of movement, by a 6:00 pm to 6:00 curfew.<\/p>\n
Whereas, there are numerous \u2018Obasekis\u2019 who mean well for the
\npeople, the Edo people must be wary by another premonition to a
\n\u2018second slavery\u2019, where an Agho Obaseki has apparently
\n\u2018reincarnated\u2019 a \u2018Godwin Obaseki\u2019, who is making to forfeit the
\nEdos to some South African,\u00a0 as it was done for the British
\nadventurists. A people re-sold into slavery may be lost, forever!<\/p>\n
\u00b7\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0TONY ERHA, A JOURNALIST AND ENVIRONMENTALIST, WRITES FROM BENIN
\nCITY, EDO STATE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Tony Erha The misfiring governor of Edo State, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, had downplayed the revocation order of about 13,750 hectares of ancestral high forest lands, belonging to unfortunate Edo…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":54477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n