The Monkey Highway
Patrick Dele Cole once again questions the benefits of the Calabar-Obudu six-lane highway
Several weeks ago at the Freedom Park, there was a documentary film shot by Michael Richards on the Drill Monkeys of the Cross River State of Nigeria, in one of the last tropical mountain forest anywhere in the world. It is also where the Drill Monkeys dwell. It is their natural habitat. Two US citizens had spent the last 20 years building a sanctuary for those monkeys which had been threatened with extinction as man destroys the last original tropical rain forest in the Cameroon Mountains where the monkeys lived. A few weeks earlier CNN had shown a longer film on the same story – basically how necessary it was to keep this environment, especially as forest logging was reducing their chances of survival. Who was doing the logging and why?
Cross River had been fortunate to have two careful governors in Donald Duke and Lyel Imoke. They have tried, with limited resources to bring progress and happiness to his inhabitants. Calabar has enjoyed the reputation of the best organised capital city in Nigeria. It was neat, clean, tarred. The people of Cross River State are infectiously happy, welcoming; the beauty of their ladies and the Cross River cuisine remain legendary.
Donald Duke reinvested the concept of environment tourism: rebuilt the Obudu Ranch Reserve and built a Sky live trolley to go up to the ranch and rehabilitated the airport in Obudu. He was able to redecorate and make beautiful and functional the old dilapidated Calabar Airport. Within a short time Calabar had required the reputation of a place to go for tourists both within and without Nigeria. International artists graced the justly famous Christmas festivities. In addition a first class modern export free zone TINAPA was built in Calabar. These achievements were as a result of clear planning and forward thinking, based on the belief that the rest of Nigeria would continue a similar growth programme and planning. Tourism on the level conceived by Duke and Imoke cannot be consigned to only one state. Moreover, Cross River had revenues from Bakassi estuary and other oil fields then known to be located in Cross Rivers. But then suddenly the state felt a double whammy, a double jeopardy. The International Court of Justice in The Hague handed over Bakassi and the environs, hitherto administered by Nigeria, to Cameroon – arguably the most unjust verdict. Moreover, the one clear characteristic of the ICT’s decisions in The Hague was the regularity with which its decisions were ignored. Nothing forced Nigeria to abide by that unjust decision and there was nothing anyone could have done about it, had Nigeria ignored the decision.
While Cross River was reeling from loss of revenue from Bakassi, several oil wells that used to belong to the state were handed over to Akwa Abom by a boundary adjustment commission whose bona fides are, at best, questionable: its decisions were unjust in denuding Cross River of substantial funds which were passed unto Akwa Ibom which was already much too wealthy from its own oil wells.
Nevertheless, Donald Duke and Lyel Imoke, his successor, soldiered on. All who ventured into Calabar were impressed by its security, tranquility, a quality of life unknown anywhere else in Nigeria. At Christmas all enjoyed the conviviality of the festive season, reminiscent of the carnival atmosphere of St Louis in Louisiana, USA, and Rio, Brazil. All that seemed to have disappeared with the exit of Lyel Imoke and the arrival of the new Governor, Senator Ben Ayade.
In addition to this, the state was part of a massive National Park which contained wilds that were being threatened. Cross River has one of the last virgin tropical forests in the world. The wood in these forests were to be harvested for timber by many countries especially China and some states in the Middle East. There is no doubt that illegal logging had been taking place but at least not on the industrial rate.
Two hundred and sixty four kilometres of a six-lane highway is the dream of any African country. This is the proposal of the new governor who wishes to build this road from Calabar to Obudu. He has also proposed to acquire for public purposes only 10-kilometres on either side of the highway. He intends to acquire 5200 sq km of land for this road i.e. 25% of all the land in Cross River.
The State Government gazette acquiring 25% of the land of Cross River for this to six- lane 264-kilometre road incidentally dispossesses 185 communities in five Local Government Areas of their land and means of livelihood. Most of these people are still unaware that the state government gazette had actually dispossessed them. I am unclear myself how an area designated by law as a National Park could be acquired by the state, a state whose governor ought to know better as he was once a senator and aware of the superiority of federal laws. Not only is the governor disregarding this particular federal law, he is also disregarding another one which calls for an environmental impact assessment on any such (see 1992 Decree on the Environmental Impact Agency) projects. The Ministry of Environment has issued two stop orders to the state government. Both fell on deaf ears. Although on this issue, the effectiveness of the EIA orders is not peculiar. Since the blood cuddling and monumental fight between Dr. Adegoroye and Dr. Aina as to the role, importance and order of precedence in the Environmental Impact Agency, that organisation seemed to have gone comatose as several other regulatory agencies and parastatals of the federal government – e.g. the Federal Character Commission, Public Complaints Commission, Legal Aid Commission, National Planning Commission, even the wrong headed and policy deficient Bureau of Public Enterprises.
The Cross River Government claims that no environmental impact studies have been carried out, that it has received no such order. Or that even if such an order was issued for it to stop the project, the order was defective because it has not seen any studies by the EIA. At this level of sophistry, it is clear that politics has taken over the project.
Perhaps a word or two is necessary about the incredible work the two US citizens from Oregon are doing about saving baboon and especially the threatened Drill monkeys. These US citizens came to Nigeria to look at the last remaining enclave of the Drill monkeys high up the mountains dividing Cameroons and Nigeria in North East of Cross River. They fell in love with these creatures which were actually living in a forest reserve. They volunteered towns to create sanctuaries for these monkeys in Calabar and North of the state. I believe something in the order of over 500 families have been preserved over the years. It is now time to gradually introduce them back to the wild but, even now, more money is needed to tackle these problems, follow their progress in the wild, record their survival and do more research. Suddenly the project is starved of funds. To be fair, the state government before Governor Ayade had been most helpful. But since this arrival of the governor, Drill Monkeys no longer compete with the filthy Lucre that was coming from Chinese and other promises to build a deep sea port in Calabar (a pipe dream – till now nothing has been done and nothing will be done) to build this wonderful six-lane road.
Normally such projects attest to the foresight of the governor and the promise which opening up of the interior with such a project can generate. Normally people petition for such roads to bring development to the people. But there is something not quite kosher with this project.
The concept of constituency projects has already sullied the atmosphere as it is feared that members of the State Assembly or their nominees have been given bush clearing contracts. Even if this is not altogether true, why acquire 10 kilometres on either side of the road which will go through the last virgin tropical forest and thus destroy the people’s livelihood and the environment of the baboons and monkeys?
The governor is a very clever man. The deputy governor (like most deputies) a former vice-chancellor, has been thoroughly sidelined. The governor travels a great deal but has so structured his state that when he is out, his younger brother acts for him. (The inevitable match of our politicians all over Nigeria towards dynastic rulership goes on apace in Cross Rivers). On why he has taken over 20 kilometres of land bothering on the highway, he claims that this is to protect the environment! He does not want villages to sprout, as is usual in Nigeria, all along the highway – that such movement would destroy the livelihood of the people, destroy the ecosystem and the monkeys would suffer and die! This project has produced a storm of protest to the governor, the federal government, and the president, etc.
Massive land clearing, nevertheless, is moving speedily; 15 contractors with second hand bulldozers are working, farms are being cleared, the people are protesting, no compensation has been paid to the owners of the land who were given six weeks’ notice before their farms were bulldozed. International NGOs are protesting – have collected nearly 200,000 signatures and the people are threatening to go to court.