Owan forest communities put Gov. Obaseki to task on ceding ancestral forest land to grabbers

“Failing in your electioneering promises to us, you can’t also give our ancestral forest lands to grabbers”-communities

Agrarian communities living inside and around the Owan rainforest zone of Edo State, cutting across its four local government areas (LGAs) of Ovia North East, Uhunmwode, Owan West and Owan East, have told the governor of the state, Mr Godwin Obaseki, not to expect that he could force them to give out the remaining vast ancestral forest lands of their local communities, to private companies, for single crop plantations and cattle grazing.

The stand was re-echoed by the communities, who have committed to a unified resolve of a meeting of representatives of the over 35 local communities of the said four LGAs, held at Avbiosi, in Owan LGA, recently.

The communities commonly use the three-in-one forestland (also called the Owan forest zone), which has no individual community or local government boundaries.

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Speaking to our reporter, who visited most of the various communities, the locals had alleged that they were riled by the constant visits to their communities by officials of the state government and fronts of the said companies, with a retinue of fierce-looking and fully armed policemen and soldiers, to either cajole or bully them into trading away their land heritage.

Obviously upset, Mr Roland Ohifeme, an elderly man from Ozalla in Owan West LGA, wondered why the governor ceded their ancestral forest reserve land to the said private companies, without prior information and consent of his community and its people, only for government and the companies to intimidate, induce and give them empty promises.

“In the two last governorship elections, our people, daring the odds, first voted for and returned Governor Obaseki to power. It is very painful that the governor, instead of fulfilling his electioneering pledges to us, is now bent on ceding our only land possession to private concerns. Where does he want our people to farm to survive? Where does he want our youth to go to? Does he want them to go to where there are no jobs (townships) to engage them?” Ohifeme lamented.

At Sabongida-Ora, the administrative headquarters of Owan West LGA, Mr Victor Isagoa, who spoke to the agreement of a crowd of the community folks, who surrounded him, complained bitterly about “the poor state of social amenities in the areas, especially the deplorable conditions of the only Iruekpen/Ozalla/Ora/Uzebba/Sobe access road, which he said had cut the Owan West and Owan East LGAs from the rest part of the state.

“What has the governor done to repair the access road? Is it not through the same road his government officials follow to hoodwink and force our people to give out their land?”

A journey through the road was really delayed and tiring, because they were filled with large craters and muds, right from the Iruekpen section, through Ozalla, Uhonmora, Sabongida-Ora, Uzebba and towards Sobe town in the LGA.

While vehicles fell by the road sides and were stuck in the muds, the taxi boarded by our reporter was also severally held down.

At Sobe, Mrs Martha Oseye Omaotola, asserted that her community had not even an acre of the forest reserve to give out.

“We are so surprised that Edo state government, instead of supporting our community to retain and till our land, is the same now helping foreigners to take over and enslave our community. Last time the government put hundreds of million of Naira into a government farm project that never worked out. Why does it now bring the same people to take over the land for 99 years and above?” She also bemoaned.

At Odiguetue, in Ovia North East LGA, Osagie Osayande, a youth leader in the community, regretted having allowed Okomu Oil Palm Company PLC to take over their land over empty promises to the community by the multinational company that originated from Belgium, Europe.

“After Governor Obaseki had encouraged the company to wrest our forest land, even though he was a vital part of the state executive council of the immediate government of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole that did the needful to revoke the same land, the governor went to give Okomu PLC, the same land of ours.

“Today, the governor now looks unconcerned as the company reneges on its touted and failed Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects in our communities”

At Oke-Irhue of Uhunmwode LGA, Mr Patrick Erhunsee, apart from ruing the food scarcity that he said had hit the community, because of their farm land he alleged to have been grabbed by the European plantation company, also criticized it for having dispatched armed soldiers to the village to demand and give an ultimatum from its Odionwere (a traditional ruler by the oldest man), to produce some youth of the town, alleged to have vandalized some property belonging to the company.

“Why threaten an old man who knows nothing with soldiers even though the company had reported same matter to the police, after the arrest and detention of some youth, who were said to have gone to the plantation of the company to pick mere oil palm fruits from the ground after harvest”? he queried.

At Orhua community, also in Uhunmwode LGA, Mr Abel Asiboja, a community leader, frowned at the neglect of the community by government and Okomu PLC, whom he said had nothing tangible in the name of CSR to show in the community, in commensuration with the huge land that was said to have been grabbed from his people.

Whilst he decried the deplorable condition of the only secondary school in the community as well as the non-existence of social amenities, he wondered why the Edo state government would want to give out the remaining ancestral rainforest reserve when there had been a little derived from the first takeover by Okomu PLC.

“Where do you want the teeming population of our land-users and the youth to go?” asked Asiboja, a leader in the community.

It could be said that the Governor Obaseki-led state government earlier signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN), under his namesake, Mr Godwin Emefiele. The CBN Governor had assisted with an initial N69 billion funding from the country’s apex bank for oil plantation expansion in the state.

Even though the beneficiaries of the funding facilities are mostly multinational companies and few local upstart companies, the governor seemed to have reneged on his earlier promise to local growers of the agriculture produce and other small and medium scale holders in the oil palm business chain, especially as they are not seen as partakers in the scheme.