By Patrick Obia
“You are been raped and you are just helpless. I am a serving Chairman of APC, if I am not sure there is a guarantee that the next APC government will protect our forest, I have no business voting for them because this whole thing begins and ends on the desk of the Chief Security Officer of the State; any other thing is a joke.”
The above assertions are the exact words of the Chairman of Boki Local Government Area of Cross River State, John Ewa expressing displeasure over the massive logging going on in Boki and a few communities in the State.
Pastor John while speaking at a stakeholders conference focused on ending deforestation in Cross River, organized by We The People (WTP) in collaboration with the Rainforest Resource and Development Center (RRDC) held in Calabar. He said the 2023 elections in the State may take a twist against APC candidates if there is no clear picture of salvaging the remaining forest in the State.
“We don’t know what the election will look like; I am not a professional politician, I’m a professional in politics, so some things are more important to me than my party. I can’t say I will remain a member of APC and all that; I don’t even know if we have parties in Nigeria. If all of us here are serious about our environment, what should guide our vote is who will protect our forest.
“I told one of the candidates who was asking me what is the need of Boki, I said, declare a state of emergency over our forest because that is the greatest need we have in Boki.
“If God can give us a governor come 29th May 2023 who will rise and say I don’t want this again, in less than three days we will only be faced with the challenges of replanting.”
He accused some traditional leaders, personnel of the Nigerian Army, and Police among others as masterminds of deforestation.
The Chairman narrated his ordeal in the hands of security agents sent to guard against illegal logging in his local government.
“It is a shame, one thing that makes me have malaria more frequently is when I enter my local government; if I can stay out of my local government until I leave office it will be better for me. As an administrator at the local government level, the initial argument was that it is not our responsibility but even if it is not, as a chief accounting officer, not chief accounting for the allocation that is supposed to come to the local government which anyway doesn’t come, I’m to account for the lives, property and the most important property we have in Boki is the forest.
“I left the task force, left everything, and said let me engage the communities; I’m not a professional in conservation but anybody with sense who has lived in Cross River State can see what is going on. We have a crisis on our hands.
“Our chiefs are timber dealers; there is no family in Boki that does not have people doing timber; I know from the problem we have a few criminal webs doing timber; they are so embraced. The Army officers who are posted to serve in our local government load timber, they have trucks that load timber and take them out.
“The Nigerian Police, the Area Commander in Ogoja work with timber dealers, sent police to arrest chiefs in the village who tried to stop timber dealers in the forest.
“Recently I came to see the Brigadier Commander of 13 Brigade after seeing the OC of Afi Barracks and I said no, are you going to watch the local government Chairman humiliated this way? I went around the Boki communities over seven times, and sincerely some timber dealers put away their sewing engines when we engaged them, I asked them, you are building fantastic houses, one day one earth trauma will bring them down and by that time you won’t recover the forest.
“The other commander (Sani) who has gone, made some efforts. You can’t believe that at some point Army arrested some other Army people over illegal logging because when I appeal to him as he was posted, he sent some Army who should stop these timber people and all that; Nigerian Army from Calabar came over there to harass him and at some point, he said no, this person is Brigadier Commander and I’m just a Colonel I can’t continue.
“Recently, the current Brigadier Commander came to see me two weeks ago when I issued this statement, he said ‘do you know the people who are involved in this thing in the State’, I know what he meant. Of course, it wouldn’t take the Nigerian Army more than three days for all of these cabals and the rest will be brought down. He told me, ‘if you want us to stop it, let the governor of the State and ask us to stop it now.’
“While I was going up and down doing these things and the community was fighting, some timber guys were inviting those crossers to Calabar and were told they will give them more soldiers to take the timbers out,” he said in a sardonic mood.