THE Aheri Kingdom in Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo State, on Tuesday, welcomed the proposed return of Dangote Industries Limited to the Olokola Free Trade Zone (OKFTZ) but rejected plans for the proposed Dangote Industrial City in the kingdom’s hinterland.
The umbrella body of the people of the area, Aheri Development Council, which stated this, which said it would welcome genuine investments along the Atlantic corridor and promised to resist any attempt to acquire its ancestral lands in the hinterland.
Speaking on the development, secretary of the Council, Ayeoba Ige Asemudara, in a statement after a meeting convened by the Maporure of Aheriland, Oba Ilesanmi Raphael Ikuemonisan-Mafo, at Zion-Pepe, Ilaje, said the kingdom would resist any attempt to acquire large swathes of its ancestral land for the proposed project.
According to the council, the Olokola Free Trade Zone was conceived in 2007 during the administration of the late Governor Olusegun Agagu to cover about 10,000 hectares along the coastal boundary of Ondo and Ogun states, with each state expected to provide 5,000 hectares.
It, however, said the project failed to take off before the end of successive administrations, adding that Dangote later left the project to establish its refinery in Lagos.
The council said it welcomed the return of Dangote and other genuine investors to the Olokola corridor, describing industrial development along the Atlantic coastline as consistent with the development aspirations of the administration of Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa.
It, nonetheless, expressed concern over the alleged plan to establish a “Dangote Industrial City” reportedly covering about 29,250 hectares, according to Dangote publications, particularly around communities along the Alape Lagoon and the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway.
The kingdom alleged that survey activities and crop enumeration had already commenced in some areas without adequate clarification on the location, size and nature of the proposed acquisition.
It said it was unacceptable for people to enter its forests and ancestral lands under the guise of government acquisition, crop enumeration, data collection or environmental impact assessment when details of the proposed projects had not been clearly communicated to the host communities.
The council also faulted the exclusion of representatives of host communities from the technical committee set up by the state government to collate records and liaise with Dangote and other companies involved in the Olokola project.
It warned that the exclusion could further widen what it described as an existing communication gap between the government, investors and the affected communities.
The kingdom argued that the 10,000 hectares already designated for the Olokola Free Trade Zone was more than sufficient when compared with the size of several other free trade zones and industrial developments in Lagos and the Niger Delta.
It, therefore, questioned the rationale for seeking an additional 29,250 hectares of land for an industrial city, particularly in an area where available habitable land was already limited.
“Aheri Kingdom welcomes Dangote and other genuine investors in our land and within the OKFTZ along the Atlantic corridor only, but not anywhere in the hinterland along the Alape Lagoon and the Lagos-Calabar Highway,” the council stated.
The kingdom said its position was informed by the peculiar geographical circumstances of Ilaje, describing the people as the Yoruba inhabitants of the Niger Delta whose land was predominantly riverine and whose coastline was increasingly threatened by sea incursion.
It said the limited land available for meaningful development north of the Atlantic shoreline was located within Aheri Kingdom and was now being opened up by the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway.
The council said the new highway had created enormous opportunities for the people and should not become a basis for dispossessing them of their ancestral land.
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