Preambles: The World Environment Day (WED) stanza for 2025 has been announced. Its topic is “Beat Plastic Pollution.” However, forestry, biodiversity, and livelihood challenges are more prevalent and topical in the nation’s Edo State. Therefore, a summary of the first thesis that guides this version should be done. Among Nigeria’s 37 comity of states, the Edo State Government, led by Mr. Godwin Obaseki as its governor from 2016 to 2024 (a total of eight years), was said to have led a “pack of the infamy.” Edo was and continues to be the leading cause of land grabbing, deforestation, severe losses to biodiversity, habitats, agriculture, and other local communities’ lifestyles.
The results are based on the United Nations Environment Program’s (UNEP) and other meticulous international organisations’ verified and reliable statistics. The point of conflict between Mr. Obaseki and the Okpamakhin Community Initiative (OCI), Coalition Against Landgrabbing and Deforestation (CALD), and other civil society organisations (CSOs) was confirmed during an official visit to the state’s current governor, Senator Monday Okpebholo. Bishop Goodluck Akpore led the visiting delegation, the Onitsha Zone Stakeholders Association, which stated that Presco had received 36,388 hectares of land from Edo State. Obaseki was profiting from the two businesses, which included Okomu Oil Palm Company Plc, in billions of dollars rather than N2 or N20. I possess the documents.
“The last time they were compelled to pay taxes was when Comrade Adams Oshiomhole shut them down,” Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu had remarked. Our state has been pillaged by these multibillion-dollar corporations. They have been doing here what they are unable to accomplish elsewhere. And throughout the last eight years, it has become worse. Astonished by the disclosures, Governor Okpebholo pledged to look into the situation and return the aforementioned forest and community areas to their rightful owners. The governor promised to investigate any claims of appropriation of agricultural, private community, and forest reserve properties during his electioneering campaign. That must have reinforced the state’s Deputy Governor Hon. Dennis Idahosa’s recent avowal announcement to state farmers who were protesting that the government was prepared to revoke and restore the lands that had been wrongfully acquired.
Problems at Benin-Ogba Zoo and Park (BENZOPA):
Situated in the heart of Africa, this premier ecotourism destination and enclave for conservation education and awareness resources is one of the last remaining examples of the Guinea lowland rainforest. The state government largely ignores BENZOPA, yet without the coordinated protection provided by its management consultant, Everal Services Limited, it would have long since vanished. OCI has made its customary demands of past administrations, but they are now on the table of the Okpebholo-led administration. These demands mostly concern the implementation of the Arbitration Agreement that was established between the Edo State Government and Everal Services Limited in November 2000.
Undue Forest Reserve Concessions to Multinational Companies and others:
Large tracts of land from the state’s rainforest reserves were unjustly given by Obaseki’s administration to his pals, who were the biggest monocrop plantation owners in the state’s history. These contested land tracts include the more than 13,750 hectares of land from Okomu Forest Reserve and Owan BC 12 Forest Reserve that were revoked by the former governor’s executive council. Former Governor Obaseki, a key member of the Oshiomhole administration that confiscated the lands, later returned them to the Okomu Oil Palm Company, which had originally taken them. Later, Obaseki’s business fronts received new, enormous lands from the forest reserves of Ehor, Urhonigbe, Ekiadolor, Owan BC 12, and Iuleha-Ora-Ozalla, respectively.
On behalf of the local people living in forests, Okpamakhin Community Initiative launched lengthy street protests and filed lawsuits against the Edo government, one of which is currently pending at the Regional Court of Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS). The villages experienced a severe shortage of staple foods and farmlands, along with the once-rich biodiversity forest, as a result of the extensive bulldozing of farmlands, crops, and standing forests, which was replaced by single-crop plantations.
Appointment of Hon Valentine Asuen as Chairman of Forestry Commission:
The broader grievance is that Hon. Valentine Asuen’s recent appointment as head of the Edo State Forestry Commission was unnecessary. They assert that a forest professional or someone with expertise in the field should be hired for the role. Following the shoddy creation of the commission by former Governor Obaseki, a lone professional was selected to lead it without assistance. Obaseki had the flexibility to distribute forest reserve lands as he saw fit because of this.
However, it’s interesting to note that the Hon. Asuen, who is allegedly untrained, has so far handled the commission’s business far more skilfully than the aforementioned Obaseki. Though he could do better, Hon. Asuen looks to be a decent listener. For the forestry commission of Asuen and Governor Okpebholo, a partnership with Okomu National Park, Arakhuan-Udo, a worldwide landmark that was previously violated and threatened without Obaseki’s direct assistance, is a significant plus.
It is admirable that Asuen is determined to keep an eye on the few remaining forest reserves and illicit logging operations. However, if that had been done prior to the Obaseki era, when there were still sizable forest reserves and standing trees, the endeavour would have been worthwhile. In actuality, there are negligible forest reserve sites where there are no more trees with quantifiable girths. No thanks to the government of Obaseki, who wasted them!
Even Hon. Asuen would be persuaded that the sticks, which resembled bamboo stems and were piled onto trucks that were purportedly illegally confiscated logs, could not be considered timbers in order to support this claim! But this serves as a warning that the Edo State government, at the direction of the Forestry Commission, should launch an intensive afforestation or tree planting campaign right once. Short-gestation trees that can develop quickly might be planted in the remaining over-exploited forest areas.
For both public and private investors, Dr. Festus Onogholo and his Africa Initiative for World Peace are already setting the standard with their tree planting project at Uhunmwode LGA’s Ehor Forest Reserve. The IDH National Initiatives for Sustainable and Climate Oil-Palm Smallholders (NISCOPS) project, which would be built on the meagre remains of the state’s forest reserve estate, should not deceive Hon. Asuen and his committee. Senator Okpebholo’s populist administration shouldn’t engage in such anti-people initiatives, as they have damaged Obaseki’s government’s reputation both domestically and internationally. We currently face a serious food and land shortage crisis in Edo, which would worsen if more land were taken away from the poor.
No one will oppose the aforementioned NISCOPS project, which its manager, Mr. Augustine Ninyio, reportedly presented to Hon. Asuen. However, it is designated for smallholding oil palm projects, which ought to be planted on private property owned by individuals. The state’s Ministry of Agriculture, not the Forestry Commission, is better suited to manage such a project. A forestry commission is responsible for managing forests, not oil palm or Iroko trees.
