By Tony Erha
It is a salient and current issue that truly deserves discussion, even on one of the very Whatsapp Media Forum or Platforms, that this writer belongs to and as a contributory member. Indeed, debating ‘every’ common problem, as it affects the common people, ideally underlines the establishment of such discourse platforms, which ordinarily profess to the pro bono publico deeds.
And because the discussions on the very platform are restricted to members, away from the public, it wouldn’t augur well to disclose the name of the platform consisting of journalists, media men, and the intelligentsia. I am by this not a member of clandestine groups, whose deliberations, though said to be premised on the Ombudsman, are restricted to its members. Instead of making it public, the commonly held position of the platforms’ administrators of most social media groups, is that their members are not opened to every Tom, Dick, and Harry.
A critical issue of the protracted deforestation and land grabbing of Edo State forest reserves crept into a peripheral debate, which soon attained a combative tone, besieged the said platform. Tempers flew to unimaginable proportions, where few of the discussants queried the relevance of such topic because a notable multinational company in the state was mentioned.
But, this writer, a campaigner of the very conservational problem under discourse, raises the public’s attention to the over-ceding of ancestral forests of local communities of the poor, wouldn’t be bugged that a few are against a generic problem that affects the state, so badly. It goes to buttress what journalists call ‘self-censorship’, a self-made check by journalists and media practitioners, as induced by pecuniary and pettiness in a wrong defense of his ‘clique zone’.
And according to Maria Shakpelova, formerly of the Freedom House, a global watchdog organization that oversees freedom of expression and the welfare of journalists, around the world: “The most undoing of journalists and their work, is self-censorship, where he had to prune himself of the journalistic ideals to objectivity and balancing of what constitutes a news item. This is the self-muzzling of information freedom than those caused by the external anti-press agents”
Why would the issue of RUGA settlement form intense discussion and another land dispossession, impoverishment, and oppression of the poor locals by almighty multinational companies and their local collaborators will not be? Why would a person be the focus because he is “a troublesome journalist”, linking to his village of origin? Is journalism a practice where dogs eat dogs?
But then, does that foreclose the over 35 other communities across Ovia North East, Uhunmwode, and Owan West LGAs, including over 20 other villages of Okomu forest reserve, in Ovia South West LGA, who are victims of the land grabs?. The prevailing destruction to Okomu National Park, a globally acclaimed conservation enclave and ecotourism destination, is also fingered by all the aforementioned grabs by the Okomu Oil Palm Company PLC (OkomuOil).
Yet, the Oshiomhole-led government was judicious by revoking the lands grabbed by OkomuOil, which Governor Obaseki later went to endorse for re-grab to the same company. Whereas, Obaseki as the Chairman of the state’s Economic Committee, was a vital part of the state’s Executive Council that revoked and gave the land back to the communities.
Presently, over 200,000 additional hectares of the forest reserves of higher biodiversity have been (with more) freely ceded out for single-crop plantations to multinationals, especially with the N69 billion and more huge funding from the CBN. Edo local growers of oil palm are sidelined by the multinationals and the state government, from the funding. But, local growers are supposedly the bedrock of the oil palm business chain; even in Malaysia, the world-leading producer of oil palm.
Now, every Edo forest land, usually tilled by the local people, are being turned into an oil palm. What the government now tells the public is that it is by so creating for Edo indigenes 600,000 jobs in the proposed oil palm plantations. But, Edo people don’t work as laborers that form about 95 percent of the workforce.
They readily consider such menial jobs as ‘slavery’ and prefer to farm on their lands. Often, it is strangers who move into the villages that become the laborers. This had led to the abandonment of plantation-bearing villages in Edo, where indigenes now lack farmlands. Examples of such villages are Igieduma, Ikpoba, Okhuo, Uhiere, Oke-Irhue, Irhiwe, Odighi, Uhiere, Ekpan, Umokpe, Orhua, Ozalla, Uzebba, Sabongidda-Ora, Uhonmora, Avbiosi, Oke-Ora, Odiguetue, Agbanikaka, Owan, Nikrogha, Udo, Ikpoba, Obaretin, Sakpoba, Makilolo, Okomu, Iguowan, Ikoka, Ofunama, Oweike etc.
Now, which lands will the army of jobless youth go to, whereas government tells them daily to go to the farm? If Edo forest is finally plundered in this reckless manner by the Obaseki’s government, where are the forests to feed the over 2,500 idle sawmills and the once-thriving woodwork and striking furniture-making business, over which Edo is the best in the country?
Ondo State, Edo’s neighbor, prefers to protect its own forests and carries on with regeneration. But, the Edo loggers now go behind to do illegal logging in Ondo, whose forests were not as rich as Edo’s, simply because Edo has mismanaged its own? Have you heard Ondo State giving out its diverse forest reserved lands to multinationals for single-crop plantations?
On the said platforms are some journalists, who are sympathizers of the multinational firms, for destroying such a robust land heritage. Just like the slaves who cherish the fetters on themselves!. But, a higher aggregate of journalists, media men, and the intelligentsia, who form the platform could make the difference by sensitizing, even leading the people to stop their heritage from annihilation.
This article serves as a prelude to an open letter to governor Obaseki about the tinges of the global resentments on his poor handling of the appalling situations.
Luckily, the grand moves to stopping the lethal threats on Edo and plundering its existence, by the slipshod operations of multinational companies on its lands, has attracted formidable national and global movement, involving the mass of Edo people at home and in the Diaspora, including concern global individuals and institutions. Aluta continua!
Tony Erha, a journalist and environmental crusader, is a forest certifier with the International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO), etc.
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