*Faults renaming Olokola free trade zone
*Wants Aiyedatiwa to reject scheme to compromise Ilaje ancestral land
The Egbe Omo Ilaje, the umbrella sociocultural organisation of the Ilaje people, in Ondo state has kicked against the alleged approval of oil drilling in Eba and and a purported “Olokola Deep Seaport” to be developed as the Blue Marine Economic Zone, credited to by Ogun state government.
It’s National President General, Prince Iwamitigha Raphael Irowainu, said in a statement that the groups attention was drawn ” to statements credited to the Ogun State government on alleged approval by the President, Bola Tinubu, for oil drilling at Eba and a purported “Olokola Deep Seaport” to be developed as the Blue Marine Economic Zone.
Irowainu said that “We however wish to say that Eba is not in Ogun State but a community in the riverine area of Ilaje Local Government of Ondo State which population is undiluted Ilaje and host of one of the oldest forest reserves in Nigeria, acquired in the earlier years of British colonial administration from Ilaje Obas.
“The evidence of bituminous oil, surging into the surface, was reported in 2013 by the residents of Ago-Alaja village in Eba to the Ilaje Local Government by which the Ondo State Ministry of Environment invited the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) for a joint inspection and collection of samples thereof for laboratory analysis.
He said that “The report of the analysis of the substance was later presented to the officials of the defunct Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) visiting the state. Further action of the Ondo State Government was the appointment of community security guards by the Ilaje Local Government to prevent access of the residents to the general area of the site.
“However, sometimes last year some land speculators came to Eba and particularly the Ago-Alaja site aforesaid and with no cooperation from the villagers returned weeks later with some security personnel harassing the people and claiming to be oil explorers on the authority of the Ogun State Government.
” A comprehensive report was presented to the Ondo State Government on this development with a public statement by Ilaje Obas.
“On the alleged Olokola Deep Seaport in the purported Blue Marine Economic Zone, it is of general public knowledge that during the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo, a large tract of land in the western axis of Ondo State abutting the Lekki Peninsula was designated Olokola Free Trade Zone, the name of an Ilaje settlement in the area, for major industrial development including Deep Sea Port, Oil Refinery and other Petro-chemical activities.
“Due to boundary disputes often orchestrated by Ogun State in the area, President Obasanjo sought a compromise of 50 percent for each state in the equity for land owners.
“The intransigence of Ogun State, as later revealed by Aliko Dangote, who initially showed interest in Olokola, forced him to shift westwards to the Lagos axis of the Lekki Peninsula for the establishment of his present Refinery.
“Therefore the idea of a unilateral development of a Deep Seaport and change of the name of Olokola to a purported “Blue Marine Economic Zone” by the Ogun State government, which existence in the territory was only a compromise for peace and development, must come to well-meaning Nigerians as a rude shock and an impossible venture.
“We reiterate for the umpteenth time that Ijebu land which constitute the southern boundary of Ogun State has no coastal territory and challenge anyone to mention such community. In contrast, only Lagos and Ilaje (now Ondo State) are contiguous Yoruba littoral territories.
“This fact was only accentuated by the British which after introduction of colonial administration in Nigeria through Lagos in 1861 by the Act of the Legislative Council on the 12th day of November 1895 made the laws of the the Colony applicable to Ilajeland in a contiguous territory eastwards from the of the Lagos lagoon (Langbasa/ Agan) abutting the Atlantic corridor inexorably through the Obe District, Imoluma villages to the tribal boundary of Ilaje and Itsekiri of Warri and thence north-easterly to the junction of Okitimokoro and Adabrassa creeks popularly known as Lagos Junction.
“This description of the Lagos Colony of which Ilaje land with all is villages were an integral part, was contained in the dispatch N0. 199 of 10th October 1903 of the Secretary of State for the Colonies and repeated in letter dated 1st January 1904 by the Governor of Lagos Colony, Sir William Macgregor to Sir Alfred Littleton MP Secretary of State for the Colonies.
“The attempts through the years to disrupt this pre-colonial settled tribal boundaries by seeking to squeeze a coastal space for the Ijebu in-between Lagos and Ilaje has been the source of unmitigated but artificial boundary crises between Ondo and Ogun States.
“Such failed experiment included the creation of Ijebu Waterside District Council/ Local Government in an attempt to incorporate Ilaje homeland communities.
” The change from Ijebu to a supposedly generic name of Ogun Waterside Local Government to give the indigenous Ilaje communities a fake sense of belonging also proved ineffectual, just as appointing a person of Ijebu origin resident in exile at Ijebu-Ode purporting him to be Oba Olurokun of Irokun where there is an Ilaje Oba, as always, under the jurisdiction of Ondo State.
He said that “The failure of contrived and often perennially reviewed documents to alter the existing tribal boundary was responsible for the adoption of ethnographic survey of the entire area by the National Boundary Commission in conjunction with the two states.
“The report of the exercise which was designed to determine the tribes and tongues of the indigenous communities and the state of their preference has been kept in abeyance since 2016.
According to him “The latest of this administrative subterfuge was the involuntary inclusion of some of these Ilaje communities in the recent memorandum for an Ijebu State which was roundly rejected by the Ilaje through their Obas and other accredited representatives at the public hearings of the relevant Committees of the National Assembly.
‘We observe that the statements in the press release by the Ogun State Government were completely outside the context of the courtesy visit by the Flag Officer Commanding (FOC) Western Naval Command, Rear Admiral Abubakar Abdullahi Mustapha to the Governor of Ogun State. Such statements were made to mislead the naval high command about the state with competent jurisdiction over the concerned villages in preparation for a possible crackdown on the people knowing fully well that such state capture would assuredly be resisted as occurred last year when Ogun State illegally drafted some naval personnel to Ago-Alaja in Eba.
“Such laughable comments include a proposed Navy Forward Operating Base (FOB) at Tongeji Island in Ogun State by the Nigerian border with the Republic of Benin, which operational area would purportedly extend to Edo State taking no cognizance of the existing FOB at Igbokoda in Ondo and other naval command establishments in Delta and Bayelsa states.
” We note and pray ” that the President with whose approval Ogun State claimed to be acting is urged to recall that any request for an investment at Olokola or Eba by or through Ogun State is a provocative act of violation of the territory of Ondo State and reject or cancel such approvals in the interest of fairness and peace.
“That the incorporation of Ogun State in the Olokola coastal arrangement was a compromise by the Obasanjo Federal Government and the governments of the two states and that the current unilateral posture of Ogun State will not stand.
“That while we are ever receptive to investment, we shall resist any attempt by the Ogun State Government to takeover our land by issuing certificates of statutory right of occupancy thereon under the guise of some nebulous investment.
They urged the government of Ondo State to reject any scheme by which an inch of the Ilaje ancestral land is compromised under whatever guise which shall ever be resisted by us and our posterity.
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