Privately run Ogba Zoo in Edo state Nigeria under threat of Land Grab by Politicians
FREEPRESS – Tourism is under attack in Edo State and it has been getting worse by the day, but Government is yet to take any concrete step to combat it. Can you imagine a zoo with over 65% of its land stolen and assets destroyed? Only to realise that some Government officials are complicit in aiding this shameful onslaught on a foremost tourism attraction of the State.
We have managed the zoo for nearly 17 years running and it has all been a dangerous struggle to protect and preserve the zoo’s assets from land grabbers. So the nascent administration of Governor Obaseki needs to move swiftly to save the situation and redeem its promise to safeguard the zoo, before what is left is totally destroyed. We are meant to be amongst the foremost Zoos on the African continent, but one of our prime assets in conservation, which is an urban forest ecosystem within which the Zoo is built, has largely been decimated.
Many of the wildlife enclosures have been bulldozed. Can you imagine a six (6) block Zoo staff quarters being bulldozed by principal officers of the State House of Assembly and the land shared by them for their private development? So we lose the land, its rich forestry assets and then the wildlife enclosures. Houses are now springing up where a purpose-built lion enclosure use to stand. You will find that they have been given Certificate of Occupancy and building permits.
How can the State attract investors with such high levels of lawlessness? We are being threatened daily by agents of the powerful land grabbers so that we will keep our mouths shut, while Government and law enforcement agencies appeared as on-lookers. This was the scenario under Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and for eight years he never visited the Zoo in spite of several invitations and SOS on the encroachment by land grabbers.
The Comrade gave several directives from his EXCO chambers as to delineation and survey of the Zoo, as well as dislodging the land grabbers, but mysteriously, none was carried out and the encroachment grew from just 10% to nearly 70% of the Zoo land. These were the darkest days for tourism development in Edo State, but we pray that the era of Governor Godwin Obaseki will be different.
We were compelled to seek Arbitration through the Chief Judge of Edo State as a last resort, all to compel Government to rise up to its responsibility of giving us peaceful use of the leasehold we have for the Zoo, but all through this Arbitration processes, up till we obtained Judgement in January this year and even till date, there has been no manifest effort by Government to engage the issues or abide by the Arbitration ruling demanding the protection of this heritage under our care by delineation and survey of the Zoo land, as well as dislodging the land grabbers.
We spent more than seven million Naira (N7.0M) during the Arbitration process, which Government is to reimburse along with a compensation of Thirty Million Naira (N30.0M), but all our correspondence in this regard since January this year have not been replied or actioned. One of the key Arbitration issues for which we obtained Judgement is the Zoo Staff quarters.
This is an ancillary facility to ensure that competent zoo personnel live in close proximity to the Zoo in the interest of public safety concerns, but then, some principal officers of the House of Assembly, led by Hon. Elizabeth Ativie, along with other well connected public officers, went to demolish these quarters even after the Arbitration Judgement in favour of the Zoo, to share the land.
What we are witnessing is a case of looting of public assets under a progressive Government of Change. We communicated this contempt of a Court Judgement to the Governor in February this year and the functionaries of the Ministries of Justice and Lands made to issue a Stop Work Order on Hon. Ativie and co-trespassers on the Zoo Staff quarters, but this went unheeded. Having waited for Government for over three months to resolve this mess and no measures taken
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