BY TONY ERHA
A luxuriant and well-manichured greenish lawns, around the gateway to the pioneer ivory tower, beside the Ugbowo-Lagos expressway in Benin City, the Edo State capital, is a precursor, which entices passersby to the lush vegetation which they are bound to encounter in the bowel of the University of Benin (UNIBEN) campus. “Green UNIBEN”, a codenamed, which also served as a sub-theme for the year 2025’s marking of the World Environment Day (WED), was held on the campus, few days after the yearly event assigned by the United Nations (UN) for ‘June 5’. Although the ‘2025 WED’ had its global theme emanating from the mitigation of the environmental pollutions of plastic wastes, Edo State government and non-state environmental actors, instead, had laid more emphasis on tree planting.
It is not, therefore, farfetched that Prof Edoba B. Omoregie SAN, UNBEN’s Vice Chancellor (VC) and his environment-friendly team and other supporters, had focused on tree planting, like other aforementioned conservation stakeholders.
To think and act local on an aspect of environmental pollution, that is more dominant in a locality, is the same thing remediatory activities which may be globally recommended to checkmate a particular scourge, as long as all local actions pertains to its mitigation. “Acting locally in isolation against environmental problems is the same thing as a collective move to solve a particular one at the global realm”
As one who had been involved in tree planting and other environmental remediation activities within the UNIBEN campus, since the late 1980s, it is like standing in the gap to assert that Prof Omoregie, Prof Osubor, his deputy, the Prof Gideon U. Emelue’s seven-man committee and the school authority etc., are poised at carrying on with the exercise, than in the past.
Led by Prof Emelue of the school’s Forestry and Wildlife Department, the Committee has Prof Matthew Isikhuemen of the same department and Prof (Mrs) V. O. Aigbokhaevbo as members. Other members are Messrs F. O. Osayimwen, E. M. Ojo and Gabriel Akin Sanni, whilst Mr. Dennis O. Aigbe, is Member/Secretary. The work of the committee was said to be facilated by Dr. (Mrs) Benedicta Ehanire, the university’s Public Relations Officer, also already had a softspot for nature conservation.
My last visit to the campus was about a year ago, when the new VC, Prof Omoregie, wasn’t yet appointed. While visting this time around, I encountered a contrast where the UNIBEN’s spaces were more adorned with well-kept lawns, which entices passersby to lie down and sleep off without mats! Indeed, this receptacle sprawls from the university’s entrance, on a walk to its administrative complex, that is tucked in the serenity of old-growth trees.
Between this edifice and its main auditorium, a giant sculpture of Aruanran the Giant, the famed environmental sanitationist, who in the Edo folklore, loved cleaningness so much so that he swept with the palm tree, like using a broom.
The imposing image of Aruanran, I suppose, bespeaks an ideal conservation mascot and UNIBEN’s fascination to tree planting, greenery and cleaningness.
The official oppening ceremony was held at the ASSU Secretariat, drawing a large crowd of participants, consisting principal officers of the university, deans, directors, heads of departments, professors, staffs and students, in addition to external guests.
In his address, Prof Omoregie, who was corroborated by Emelue and other speakers, emphasised the instantaneous planting of the first 5,000 trees out of the 10,000 he earlier told a visiting Edo State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), that his school was going to plant.
While reiterating the niceties of tree planting, which principally include mitigation on climate change, replenishment of the environment and to make the campus environment-friendly, he vowed to support the initiative and bring about a change, where trees would no longer be indiscriminately fell within the campus.
The tree planting exercise, as propelled by Prof Emelue, but led by VC Omoregie, congregated multitude of planters, which include the university populace and outsiders, as earlier mentioned in the roll-call.
Everybody was excitingly engrossed in the business of the day that brought them together – tree planting!
Tree planting is thrilling as he who plants a tree plants a human life. Trees, like the humans, are made from seeds that are planted and nutured to adulthood. Interestingly, getting the young to plant and appreciate the trees is a self-fulfilment venture that one would cherish.
Although the students who joined in this very exercise, were limited in number than other inspiring experiences I had had on this campus, as I joined in planting trees, the excitement at which all carry it out, this time around, was worth the exercise.
According to Prof Emelue, “most students are doing their examinations, otherwise, their multitudes would have come to partake in this planting, as usual”.
That scores the need to engage youth in the drills of conservation and tree planting, as it is in consonance with the homily of the Chinese; “Where trees are planted, generations of people, young and old, should be thoroughly educated…”. It pleases me now to see that some of the past conservation-biased students are of positive influences to some forestry and environmental institutions, not only in the state, but also elsewhere in the country.
Late in the 1980s, students members of the university’s Environmental Conservation Club, who should now be older persons that contribute to society, were positively indoctrinated into the school’s tree planting activities and environmental sanitation, which had become an engaging tradition on the campus.
The UNIBEN Club was established alongside hundreds of secondary and higher educational institutions in the former Bendel State, under the guidiance of the defunct Environmental Education Unit, at College of Education, Ekiadolor, Benin City.
It was an intervention project funded and coordinated by the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF), World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
With Dr Lawrence Ezemonye (now a professor) and Vice Chancellor of the Igbinedion University, Okada, the first private university in the country, I had assisted the NCF’s backed unit and Prof Ezemonye, one of the pioneers of the unit, in continuous activities around the old Bendel State, until and after it was balkanized into Edo and Delta states in 1991.
One was so elated, seeing the fledgling suckers planted in the campus, during the successive years, growing into big trees of large girths and tinted canopies.
These include those that were planted by Prof Isikhuemen, in 2011. While serving as Edo State commissioner for Environment in 2011, Prince Clem Agba, who later became the immediate-past minister of state for Budget and National Planning, would have a cause to be glad that he acceded to a request by Prof Isikhuemen, that tree suckers from the ministry’s nursery, be donated for planting in UNIBEN.
The purpose and saving grace of the trees’ girths and canopy glory may have etched in the consciousness of an environmentally-flaired Omoregie. “Most of us had enjoyed and withstood the long Treak for Tree Planting, because the big trees, with the canopies had shielded us from the scorching sun. Without it we wouldn’t have been able to make it”. The VC, still wearing the fez-cap souvenir of the event, hours after, had testified.
In another joyful moment of volunteerism for the UNIBEN’s treelots, Dr. Festus Onogholo, a notable conservationist and initiator of the Ehor Tree Planting Project, funded by the Bernadette Strebel World Peace, recently donated 1,000 tree suckers of different species to UNIBEN.
The UNIBEN’s designated land area is vast and consists of the Guinea Lowland Rainforest, an appendage of the valuable and biodiversity-high mangrove of Niger Delta region, that has greatly shrank in size and natural components, a euphemism that they are endangered.
A call from this writer, is that the UNIBEN’s land be further planted with wild species, indigenous fruit trees and ferns, so that part of it could form a natural Guinea Lowland Rainforest, to serve posterity.
Luckily, this is the intent of professors Omoregie, Osubor, Emelue and others who spoke at the occasion, like professors Victor Omokaro, Eddy Eragbe and Lucy Okupon.
Also, another suggestion by this writer, is for it to also be adopted as a home, transit and destination for numerous indigenous birds, and other migratory species that visit the campus and other treelots and sacred groves within Benin City.
Only few weeks ago, the Great Hornbill birds were sighted by Ornithologists around the Royal Woodland Park located in the Benin City surbub of Oghede, Ekenwan Road. The species and several rainforest migratory forest birds from other countries, had been spotted in Benin Ogba Zoo and Nature Park (BENZOPA) and UNIBEN, especially about its extreme wetlands.
Confirmations by Omoarebu Igbode and Ulf Ottosson, two authoritative bird experts, said that the Great Hornby is of migratory flocks to Benin City, from Asia countries like Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore etc., which are their countries of origin.
With more trees planted and not indiscriminately cut down within UNIBEN, this writer is also optimistic that more of the migratory birds and indigenous species could make UNIBEN a haven that could serve as important bird habitat, that could transform into a Museum of Natural History, and a centre for Bird’s Ringing and Migration.
These prospects had been thrown open by this writer, during the useful discussion with Prof Omoregie, as he earlier stressed it when the Forestry Stakeholders of Edo State, recently paid official visit to the state’s Forest Commission, at the instance of Dr. Valentine Asuen, its Chairman. This writer is Secretary and Prof Emelue, a member of the group, led by Dr. Hassan A. Ikhelowa, a seasoned administrator and notable environmentalist.
*Tony Erha, a journalist and conservation activist, could be reached at tonyerha@gmail.com*
