Fight Over Illegal Logging Business In Okomu Forest Reserve Turns Area Into Battle Ground
Insight has been thrown into the cause of the protracted battle that now rages in Inikirogha community in Ovia South West L.G.A. in Edo State following an interview granted by the Western Zone scribe of the Ijaw Youth Congress (IYC) Mr Olu Derimo, and published in an online media blog, www.congressng. com on the 28th March 2022. The youth leader attributed the attack on the community to a supremacy battle between Governor Obaseki’s SSA, Mr Godstime Ogidigba, and Mr. Robert Okubo over who controls the illegal logging business in the Okomu Forest Reserve and Okomu National Park.
As contained in a Statement issued on behalf of the leadership of the Oil Palm Company, Fidelis Oliseh said, “The protracted fight has spilled into the Okomu Oil Palm Company Plc’s Extension 1 plantation, and also where Inikorogha community residents have illegally moved onto the company’s land, prompting the State Government EdoGIS to warn them to stay away from the area or risk being attacked.
It will also be recalled that the Okomu Oil Palm Company Plc has been a target of attack by militants since February 2022 leading to massive theft of rubber and oil palm fruit. Worried by the incessant illegal logging in the Okomu Forest Reserve and ongoing attacks of employees and product theft from the company, the Obaseki-led administration have made frantic efforts to curtail the illegality and stationed Marine Police on the Okomu River to apprehend illegal loggers as they ferry logs to different destinations through the river.
Oliseh explained in the Statement that “Whilst the presence of gunboats on the Okomu River has yielded some results, the recent eruption of violence and squatting by Inikorogha indigenes on private property cannot be condoned, nor the threats by them against Government agencies tolerated. The Government should not relent in taking a firm position against the likes of these criminal factions in Okomu Forest Reserve and the Okomu National Park with the aim of routing them from these areas, even if it means bringing the army in to swoop them in order to sack squatters and restore law and order in this area”. The management noted that without a strong security effort, the criminal elements will continue to invade the community whilst investment suffers, the peace loving citizens continue to be bullied and the Governor’s MEGA theme will remain a pipe dream under these bandits and their selfish interests.