For the past eight years, there had been more stealthy threats to the Benin-Ogba Zoo and Nature Park; now worsened by the seemingly nonchalance to addressing it by the Edo State Government, who holds it as a trustee for the Edo public whose failure to act and solve the threats seems to encourage the ceaseless violations by the violators.
In today’s world, where the Climate Change scourge prevalently distresses all and corporate bodies are committed to supporting humanity to roll back the blight, in order to save mankind, it is disheartening and appalling that there exists a Nigeria’s National Petroleum Development Company [NPDC] Ltd., that tends to display a deliberate reversal policy to dishonour very simple corporate social responsibility [CSR] and environmental sustainability standards, upon which NPDC was supposedly established as a sub-national corporation.
NPDC, a subsidiary of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation [NNPC], had established on the once pristine rainforest land of BENZOPA, a luxurious and sprawling edifice, which serves as its national headquarters.
The NPDC complex, located opposite BENZOPA, exposes the nature park and its unique diverse biological and nature forms to the manacles of direct sunlight and other environmental hazards. In other words, BENZOPA is thus at the mercy of NPDC.
According to sources, BENZOPA had written series of letters directly to NPDC and its parent organization NNPC, to no avail nor did it live up to the obligations demanded from it.
In an earlier report by one environmentalist, Ako Amadi noted that On 23rd October, 2013, when the whooping N20 billion complex was still being constructed, BENZOPA’s Management wrote to the NNPC Group General Manager through the then Project Manager of the NPDC Headquarters, the letter, signed by Andy Osa Ehanire, BENZOPA’s Director and Chief Executive Officer, sought for the corporation’s involvement in some key areas of the park and its nature protection.
‘’It called for the recognition of the environmental status of the global conservation enclave, from which the gigantic NPDC’s land was carved out. Until now, NNPC and its subsidiary NPDC were silent on the veracity of the mandatory procurement of Environmental Impact Assessment [EIA] feasibility, for the gigantic project’’.
The letter, according to Amadi called on both to unveil the EIA plan, pronto, or conduct one that should duly involve all the stakeholders.
Amadi also stated further that that such E.I.A. studies and synergy, if carried out, with NNPC/NPDC and BENZOPA, would have reenacted the similarity of the nexus between the Nigerian Conservation Foundation [NCF] and Chevron Nigeria Limited.
This was a reference to the good corporate example of Chevron to nature conservation, as the multinational company had built the famous Lekki Conservation and supports the conservation activities of NCF.
In its momentous inception as a frontline Nigeria’s zoo and nature park [a protected area] in 1971 by the defunct Mid-West State government, BENZOPA’s original acres of 750 and other extended land, had increasingly shrank or grabbed by poachers and grabbers. But the state government had failed to confirm or categorize what is left of its size.
Although the Obaseki’s government can’t be wholly blamed for the dissipation of the enclave, since the problem had protracted, it cannot all-together be exonerated from a vicarious responsibility, as it had been worst under its official watch.
BENZOPA, in the conservationists’ and world view, is the last remnant of the rarest and rich Guinea Lowland Rainforest, which is situated within the city centre, for which BENZOPA is perhaps one of the last in Africa.
The Edo State government should live up to its responsibility as a trustee of the nature park, by addressing immediately, the problems that beset it, such as valuating its physical and ecological assets and to determine its remaining land area, which must be strictly protected.
It should also constantly de-silt the Ogba River and the effluents that flow freely into and through it. The expired floras should be regrown, while the old growths of trees and lianas are strictly protected, with adequate landscaping of its turfs.
Needed to be proper fencing is the remaining designated land, whose terms of an industrial arbitration must be respected.
BENZOPA, the nature’s masterpiece, a haven for conservation education and awareness, research, and eco-tourism visits must be protected for the cross generation of picnickers, which include the children and workers of NPDC.
And Edo State government has no option, but to prevail on the NNPC and NPDC to live up to their responsibilities on BENZOPA.
By Tony Erha