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IBAJI OIL DISCOVERY Sixty-two years after oil wells were discovered in Ojuwo-Ochekwu community in Olamaboro local government area of Kogi state, it still remains a tale of woe, even as the community leaders are renewing calls for the exploration of the resources for the benefit of the state and the country. These oil wells both onshore and offshore were discovered by Shell BP in the hills as far back as 1952, but abandoned due to some political concerns. However, the Kogi state government seems determined to actualize the dream of being an oil producing state, and has recently engaged investors from the United states of America who visited the state to assess the facts on ground. First it was the disputed Ibaji oil well exploited by Elf, and now it is the four oil wells said to have been drilled by Shell Petroleum over six decades ago, but were subsequently abandoned. But the question is how economically viable is the said oil fields, and whether or not they are in commercial quantity worthy of investment. Curiously, while that of Ojuwo-Ochekwu was abandoned by BP, so also was the controversial Ibaji well abandoned by Elf in the distant past because of unsubstantiated perception of non viability of the project. Special Adviser to Kogi state governor on Petroleum Development, Mr Dare Adesina told our correspondent that oil occurs in segmentary distribution, using different criteria to determine it. Given the geology of Nigeria between the North and south divide, Mr Adesina said that the next basin after the Niger Delta is that of Anambra basin with researches indicating the presence of a lot of oil deposit. He said that both Anambra and Kogi are claiming ownership of the Anambra basin with Kogi having about 57% of the entire Anambra basin while the remaining 43% is being shared by Anambra 1, Enugu 11, and Delta state and Edo state with a few percentage. He said that there are two main segmentary basins which Kogi shares with other states. The Ibaji and Igala-Mela/Odolu which Kogi earns from the Anambra basin. And a part of the Bida basin which it also shares with Niger and other states. The recent face off between Kogi and Anambra states was occasioned by the exploration activities of Orient Petroleum Company drafted to the site by the Anambra state government. Kogi state government which is also laying claims to ownership of the oil wells took the part of peace by petitioning the federal government over the Orient oil company working for Anambra state. The main contending issue is who enjoys the derivation from the exploration. According to the Special Adviser, the petroleum ownership law as inherited from the British colonial masters states that ownership of any mineral resources some 100 meters on the sub surface of the land exclusively belongs to the federal government. But that exclusive right demands that the royalty be paid to the land owner, or the state as is the case here. He was unequivoval when he said that the particular oil well in dispute is situated in Anambra basin 1 in Kogi state and documents of compensation to Odeke in Ibaji local government area of the Kogi state by Elf Company are available. The petition, he said, prompted the Federal Government to instruct the National Boundry Commission to delineate the boundry between the two states to avoid fracas and to determine whose territory the disputed oil well falls into. This, he said, the commission has done meticulously but has not made its findings known yet. The findings of the commission is going to be followed by yet another committee, this time a technical committee made up of seasoned geologists saddled with the responsibility of determining the architecture of oil deposit underground. This is to determine the quantity of oil reserve and whether its expanse cuts across the two states or in favour of another as opposed to the surface value will be determined by the boundry commission. He asserted that from the physical location of the oil well, Kogi state will be favoured by the commission but reserves the right to pronounce that to the National Boundary Commission Speaking on the Green Oil Refinery, Mr Adesina said that as part of the efforts to provide enabling environment to the federal government to execute the project, the state government had provided a parcel of land to the company for the smooth take off of the project. He said that some investors from the United states of America who were in Lokoja recently on facts finding misson have indicated their interest to invest in the oil industry. The Special Adviser was optimistic that every other thing being equal, Kogi state will soon be a beehive of economic activities following the anticipated emergence of oil industry that will create jobs for the teeming population. He however, maintained that because of the delay in determing who owns what in respect of the oil wells, the state has decided to maintain peace and withhold every plan to commence exploration for now. An earlier report by a newspaper on the abandoned wells noted that according to the community leader, the serene community characterized by ubiquitous oil palms and an array of hills woke up to a disturbing sound of a metal bird that was hitherto unheard off in the history of the community, No sooner had the metal bird vanished than three white men apppeared finding their way through a footpath into Ojuwo-Ochekwu after safe landing and into a thick forest across cyclical array of hills where it was superstitiously held was the abode of evil spirits. The foerign intruders perceived crude oil onshore and offshore River Maboro. In Ojuwo-Ochekwu the river that runs into this territory from Ankpa has its tributary. For as long as the ancestors of the people of Ojuwu-Ochekwu lived in this land, the people had suspected that the forest hid treasures which, at an unknown future, would be discovered. “I was a teenager in those days,” the Madaki of Etukwo Ukoh in Ojuwo-Ochekwu, Chief Matthew Apeh, told our reporter, while he was escounsed on a rickety wooden three-settee chair, made attractive by a neat piece of plastic carpet that covered it. Chief Apeh spoke about the excitement of those days with nostalgia. “We didn’t know what it was when we saw the helicopter in the air. It would come, flying lowly, then it would disappear. But in a matter of weeks, the white men built an airstrip – which is still there till today – and began to land there.” The white men were from Shell British Petroleum (Shell BP) in Lagos. Chief Apeh, recollecting the events of those days said, “There was a beehive of activities in all the villages around here. Workers came from all over Igala land including Idah, the headquarters of the Igala Native Authority. There was a lot to do, like clearing the bush to create the path to the location of the crude oil, digging holes, fetching water, and all sorts of menial jobs that paid us handsomely.” Because of the influx of people Ojuwo-Ochekwu became a centre of attraction to that dragged prominent individuals, including the then Attah Igala, who visited the site. A long stretch of road was constructed from Okpo, the current headquarters of Olamaboro Local Government Area, to Ojuwo Ochekwu. The 12-kilometre two-lane road is now erosion-prone, bumpy and hardly motorable but it remains the only access road to Ojuwo-Ochekwu in the last 62 years. “The road was wider than this,” 56-year-old Prince Matthew Odoh, an educationist and community leader, told our reporter. “In the early 1950s, they came in helicopters. That was when they sensed that there was crude oil in this environment. When they became certain, the white men now came with bulldozers and cleared the broad pathway to Ojuwo-Ochekwu in order to transport their equipment to the location. It took one year to construct this road it took another to bring in their equipment and an equivalent year to commence exploration work on the site in earnest earnest which culminated in the digging and drilling oil from the ground. They dug as deep as 100 feet to be able to reach the crude oil. Work was intensive on this site for between six and seven months, until a kind of political conflict set in. The white men were caught in the middle of it, and departed from here to Oluiiri in present-day Bayelsa State to work on the oil-find.” Chief Apeh told our reporter that before Shell BP workers went to Ojuwo-Ochekwu to work and drill oil, the residents in the villages were in awe of the array of 10 mountains around where crude oil was found. “From the village here, we would hear unusual drumming, some kinds of ominious sound emanating from the mountains. We got used to the mystery and warned our people against straying into those mountains, as it was considered a point of no return. In the evening, the area around the mountains would be as hot as oven. When the weather is cold in this village, the mountainous region would become hot. And early in the morning we would find evaporating smoke from the mountains enveloping theem, turning the whole atmosphere into white thick cloud.” The journey from the village to the location of the oil well, even in the modern day Nigeria did not belie what the village chief talked about. As it was some 62 years ago, so it is til date. “In those days, this place was a no-go area for villagers,” Prince Odoh explained. “Before the discovery of oil here it was a forest where hunters caught pythons, lions, hippopotamus, leopard, crocodiles and other wild animals from the river. People came from different parts of Igala land to hunt for animals, but since the exploratory work done by the white man, those animals have disappeared. It is suspected that the heavy machines used by the explorers and the sound they produced during their activities scared the animals away and relocated to other quiet and non life threatening save zones.” After trekking for about an hour, this reporter and the excited youths of the community arrived at one of the oil wells. It’s a beacon of about eight square metres. With the stamp of Shell BP clearly printed on it, the slab has a bold mark as PSN/60 and MP/67. Around this slab are holes created by grenades used to break the ground to enable Shell BP engineers penetrate the well. This beacon is one of four, two of them onshore and two others offshore. From the location of this slab to the mountain is estimated to be about three kilometres, while from the mountain to Mabolo River where other wells are traced is another three kilometres. The range is very wide, such that locating them by trekking through the blurred pathway could be a tedious adventure. Until the conflict between Ibaji community in Kogi State and Anambra community over oil well being explored by Orient Oil Company revived the prospects of oil deposits in Kogi State to global attention, not many people knew that there was any oil well in Ojuwo-Ochekwu. “Initially, when people in the oil industry talked about oil deposits in Nigeria, reference was made to Ibaji,” Prince Odoh said. “Ojuwo-Ochekwu was never recognised. The oil deposit here was thought to be in Anambra State. I had to raise my voice to bring this to the attention of the authorities that there is oil deposit here.” This community leader had to blow his trumpet before he was even given attention by his State government. According to Prince Odoh, we wrote to Lokoja, informing the authorities of abandoned oil wells asking government to set up a committee to explore and complete the project. For two years he was ignored. “Since October 2013, I was always going to Lokoja and sleeping there, impressing it on them that we have oil wealth in my village,” Prince Odoh said. “After intense search, we discovered that there is a map in the Ministry of Commerce in Lokoja, which identified this village as having oil deposit. It was inherited from the old Benue State, which has a record of the oil deposit in Ojuwo-Ochekwu. We took it to the Government House to prove what I had been talking about. We’ve linked up with Shell BP in Lagos, which confirmed that its engineers had done some work here, but there was no conclusive information on why they abruptly stopped work here. We want to continue from where Shell BP engineers stopped.” Already,the Kogi State government has sent out a fact-finding team to Ojuwo-Ochekwu. According to a letter dated February 20, 2014 and signed by Daikwo John, Director, Investment Promotion of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in Lokoja, the following discoveries have been made and steps are being taken: (i) The first exploration was carried out in 1952 and drilling started in 1955 by the Shell BP Company; (ii) Beacons with different inscriptions such as PSN/60, MP/67, ND/43 etc were mounted at different locations and at the descending order from a hill to Maboro river; (iii) One of the employed community members who is now the senior Gago gave brief history on the stoppage, that it was politically motivated during the late Attah Igala, Ameh Oboni, and the company had no alternative than to move out of site. By this letter, the ministry authorised Prince Matthew Odoh to collaborate with the authorities in Kogi State to look for investors for “a fresh geological investigation, exploration and investment in the oil wells.” The youths of this community have been upbeat about this renewed interest in the oil wells. They are looking forward to a great future of mass employment and wealth, a period when Ojuwo-Ochekwu would be transformed from farming to a huge industrial community because, according to Prince Odoh, some persons from the United States have indicated interest in the oil wells. The prayers of the people could be answered only if there is oil in commercial quantity under the 10 mountains and offshore in the great Maboro River.