Last year, National Record published a detailed investigative report of how Dangote Coal Mines Ltd, and Dangote Cement Plant, subsidiaries of Dangote Group, in their exploration of mineral resources in Benue State caused extensive environmental pollution in their host communities. The two-part report, published on November 25, 2022 and December 5, 2022, respectively, also exposed how the multi-billion-dollar Dangote Group deliberately abandoned proposed boreholes it drilled to remedy the pollution of key sources of water in the coal belt of Okpokwu LGA. In this follow-up report, the communities are still depending on the poisoned waters. Our correspondent also takes a look at cassava processing plant, Pure Biotech Company Ltd, and the hazards it is inflicting on its host community of Angbaaye. Amos Aar reports…
Despite the huge profit being derived from its mining explorations in Benue State over the past decade or so, the Dangote Group, from all indications, has deliberately snubbed its host communities whose water and other environmental resources have been irreparably damaged.
Checks by National Record in the affected host communities indicate that a few projects embarked upon as reparation for polluted water or as part of the company’s corporate social responsibility as should be contained in Community Agreement have been abandoned.
In every community where a subsidiary of Dangote Group operates in Benue, residents are agitated over different kinds of social, economic and environmental hazards disrupting the peace and normal living conditions.
Residents of host communities also grumble about alleged impunity and open disregard for extant rules guiding such operations such as Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) and other important variables such as Community Development Agreement (CDA) that takes into account companies’ corporate social responsibility to its host communities.
Abandoned boreholes
A perfect illustration of Dangote Group’s insensitivity, negligence and impunity is displayed in its abandonment of borehole projects for host communities in Amejo, Ekeh and Ugbokolo wards in Okpokwu LGA of Benue State where the operations of the conglomerate have poisoned the peoples natural sources of potable water.
National Record had in November last year published a two-part report on Dangote’s coal exploration in Effeche-Akpali and environs, and in the effort to mitigate its pollution of some rivers, contracted a company to drill of boreholes started from the worst impacted communities under Phase One.
Our findings indicate that almost two years after, the drilling and full fitting of the boreholes in just three of the impacted villages may have been abandoned by Dangote.
Visits to Ai’Okpasu-Ekeh, Ogene-Amejo and Umabe-Ehaje-Ugbokolo; villages in Amejo, Ekeh and Ugbokolo council wards of Edumoga District of Okpokwu LGA where the phase one of the borehole contracts were awarded to mitigate the pollution indicate that the projects have literally been abandoned, leaving the inhabitants hopeless and forced to drink from the polluted rivers.
While National Record has confirmed that the boreholes have been successfully drilled since April 2022, they however remained un-kitted and therefore nonfunctional over one and half years after, thereby forcing the communities to continue to drink from the contaminated rivers.
A teacher at the Catholic Minor Seminary, Michael The Archangel Minor Seminary, located in Ochobo in Ohimini LGA, and which depends on the contaminated Rivers Umabe and Ohimini, confided in National Record that the school spends about one hundred and forty-eight thousand naira (N148,000) every month to decontaminate the polluted water for the school’s use.
The teacher, who pleaded anonymity as he is not the school’s official spokesperson, told this reporter that the degree of pollution of the Rivers Umabe and Ohimini is usually high especially during the rainy season. He said the school has neither received any compensation nor even a visit from the Dangote Group, although he did not say if the school’s authority had raised the matter with the company.
Asked if the Dangote has made any efforts since National Record’s publication on November 25, 2022, the teacher said: “Nothing, nothing, they have done nothing.”
For Engr Geoffrey Owotikwu, President of Edumoga Youth Movement (EYM), the pressure group that had been in the forefront of the struggle to ensure that Dangote Coal Mines takes full responsibility for the pollution, Dangote Group has abandoned the boreholes project.
“It has been like that since you came for the visit. Dangote’s Group of Companies are making jest of the entire Edumoga and taking them for granted and it is ridiculous that a company like that is being insincere,” Engr Owotikwu lamented.
Dangote Speaks
As at October 15, 2022, the General Manager (Special Duties) of Dangote Coal Mines Ltd, Nuhu Elujah, told National Record that there was an initial hiccup in the payment of the contractor by the company which had delayed the work.
He, however, said that the problem was resolved as the contractor had been paid the first tranche of the money and would mobilise to site to complete the boreholes soon.
But over a year after Elujah’s assurances, the boreholes were still at the same stages of abandonment, leading to speculation that the underground water has also been contaminated.
When contacted on August 7, 2023 to find out why the boreholes projects were still abandoned despite his claim that the contractor was mobilised to complete the work since October 2022, Elujah accused the borehole drilling company, Godapa Global Resources, of under-performance. He then revealed that the contract with Godapa had been terminated and that other contractors had submitted bids for completion of the boreholes.
“Management has terminated the contract due to unsatisfactory performance by the contractor. Three new contractors have submitted bids for completion of the projects and are being processed for re-award,” Elujah told National Record via WhatsApp.
Elujah, however, kept mute when asked amongst other questions the exact time the contract was terminated, when exactly Dangote realised that the contractor was not performing and the maximum standard period for the completion of the boreholes?
On his part, Terese of Godapa Global Resources, whose contract was said to have been terminated by Dangote Coal Mines Ltd, told National Record on phone on August 9, 2023 that they were still being owed.
Contrary to Elujah’s clear statement that the contract had been terminated, Terese seem not to be aware that Dangote had terminated the contract although he admitted that Dangote might have engaged another contractor to complete the boreholes despite Godapa’s plea to be allowed to complete the work they started.
Terese told National Record that though he does not know exactly when the contract was terminated, he was however aware of the correspondence between Dangote and his boss at Godapa Global Resources to that effect. He said mails with regard to the termination “was received by my boss, not me. So, I can’t tell you the exact date.”
When asked the nature of the information his boss availed him on the matter, Terese said he (boss) declined to discuss the issue with him on the matter and asked National Record to rather contact Dangote Coal Mines Ltd since it was the one that awarded the contract.
After several calls and text messages on the issue, Elujah neither picked nor responded to this reporter’s enquiries.
Grievances Persist at Dangote Cement Plant, Gboko
At the Dangote Cement Plant, Gboko, the host community, Amua/Tse-Kucha, in Mbayion District of Gboko LGA, who had on December 31, 2022, demanded one billion naira, 20 motorised boreholes, employment of fifty (50) youths from the community by the company, a hospital and electricity as compensations for damages and other mining hazards being suffered as a result of alleged refusal of the company’s refused to fulfil the Community Development Agreement (CDA) reached with them.
Following the alleged manifest indifference exhibited by Dangote Cement Plant towards the fulfilment of the CDA, a resident of Mbatyula community, Hon. Yaji Akpa, accused the management of the plant of not living up to its corporate social responsibility.
“Dangote Group has not lived up to its corporate social responsibility and has failed to compensate us in spite of our ceaseless outcry.
“The vote of confidence passed on the plant Director by the management staff who are sons of the soil here does not reflect the views of the generality of Mbayion people. They did it out of their personal interest because they are benefiting from the company,” Hon. Akpa said.
In his reaction to the alleged vote of confidence, kindred head (Ortar) of Mbatyula, Chief Ajoh, declined to comment on the hazards as well as the infidelity of the company to the host community especially with regard to the CDA.
Manager in charge of Community Relations of the plant, Dr Eugene Ivase, failed to grant audience to this reporter during a visit to the plant. He also did not pick several phone calls or WhatsApp messages to him by National Record seeking response to the allegations of environmental hazards and lack of remedial measures by the host community.
When also contacted to speak on both the pollution at coal mine in Okpokwu LGA as well as the cement plant in Gboko, Jibrin Abubakar, the Corporate Communications Manager, North of Dangote Group, told this reporter that Nuhu Elujah had informed him that he had already responded to National Record’s enquiries on the issue.
“I’ve spoken to the community relations manager, and he said he has responded to your inquiry,” Abubakar stated in a chat on Whatsapp.
Despite this reporter’s explanations that Elujah’s response was inconclusive and exclusive to the pollution of rivers by Dangote Coal Mines in Edumoga in Okpokwu LGA, Abubakar declined further comments on why the host community of the cement plant was yet to be compensated and provided with social amenities.
Abubakar later sent a subtle threat to both the reporter and Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of National Record by forwarding via WhatsApp a story of an alleged jailing of a lawyer claimed to have libel Dangote operation in Kogi State.
Pure Biotech Company, Makurdi
Like Dangote Group, Pure Biotech Company Ltd, a cassava processing plant located in Angbaaye, a community located along Makurdi-Gboko Road, has also failed in its corporate social responsibility of care for the wellbeing of Angbaaye, the host community.
Our findings instead indicate that the company has refused to make any remedial measures claiming not to be responsible for the pollution.
Although the management of the cassava processing plant, owned by a Chinese, Liu Yangxi, claimed that it has devised a means of controlling the disposal of effluent and other toxic wastes that contaminate River Benue which Angbaaye Community depends on for their water needs, members of the community however told that the company has in addition to the environmental hazards orchestrated by its activities not done much in terms of the provision of social amenities.
As a result of a combination of these lapses, the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) had on April 17, 2023 sealed the Company for operating without a functional Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP), thereby channelling untreated effluents directly into the River Benue.
The sealing of the company followed series of reports by media organisations including National Record after an investigative report by the Safer-Media Initiative (SMI), a partner in the collaborative project of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism.
But the company had announced on May 3, 2023, two weeks after the shutdown, that it had installed a N7.5 billion Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP)to ensure that all liquid and solid wastes were pre-treated, recycled and reused without discharging it into the River Benue. Following the announcement, NESREA reopened the ethanol producing firm.
In our reporter’s efforts to confirm the installation of the ETP, he visited the back of the company recently and saw a deep channel that was created and was filled with black effluent from the plant.
Eager and determined to see the multi-billion-naira ETP to be sure that it was installed, the reporter contacted the Corporate Communication and Public Relations Manager of the firm, Stephen Numbeve, through a WhatsApp chat on September 28, 2023, seeking permission to access the company and be taken to the ETP. But Numbe said, “I will revert”.
However, youth leader of the community, Joseph Gbajime, and another resident of the community, Tyokumbur Ahemba, who spoke separately with the reporter on phone on September 28 were unanimous that the “odour” was still disturbing but it was not as much as before.
A source who pleaded anonymity but had access to the premises of the company also revealed that “the air pollution had been minimised” although not completely controlled.
On the contamination of the river alleged to have caused massive fish mortality in River Benue between February and March 2023 as well as posed health challenges to humans, Gbajime and Ahemba said they did not witness it again.
Ahemba who spoke in Tiv language asked the reporter: “Did you see how black the water released from the plant was when you visited the site? The effluent used to come out with all kinds of dirt and it was very hot because water wasn’t much then. So, it was killing the fishes. But when water [from the river Benue] increased, the effluent became food for the fishes that even when they eat it now, nothing happens to them. The effluent also used to stick on fishnets cast in the river for fishing. But that’s not the case these days.
Like the case of the host communities of Dangote Group in Benue South and the Cement Plant in Gboko local government, Angbaaye, the host community of the Pure Biotech Company, is facing the same challenge according to Ahemba and Gbajime who said the company had agreed to build a school, hospital, provide electricity and water for them but has failed to fulfil the promises.
“Even borehole, it was when the company was sealed up that they dug two hand-pumped boreholes. But one of the boreholes is not bringing water.
“They are supposed to give us electricity. But when our transformer developed fault and became dysfunctional, the company said it would bring money to repair the faulty transformer instead of acquiring a brand new one for us. Up till today, nothing has been done about it. They are taking us as fools,” Ahemba lamented.
This report is supported by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) under the Collaborative Media Engagement for Development, Inclusivity and Accountability project (CMEDIA) with funding support from the MacArthur Foundation.
