By Mercy Wai-Ogosu
Women of Efeche Akpali Community of Obokolo, in Okpoku Local Government Area of Benue State, have called on Dangote Coal Mining Company to undertake full remediation of their community land they insist the company used and abandoned.
The women made this call recently after conducting newsmen and the Executive Coordinator of a Rights Group, Green leaf Advocacy and, Empowerment Centre, round the degraded and abandoned site in the community.
A representative of the women, Mrs Virginia Abba, said the loss of large expanse of arable land leased to the company was the beginning of their hardship as mothers and wives.
She said as farmers, land was their main source of livelihood, lamenting that the loss of their land triggered scarcity, conflict and poverty. While, they have been seen unprecedented environmental degradation in the last five years as a result the mining activities.
Mrs Abba alleged that Dangote Coal Mining Company has abandoned the vast land reduced to cretins, gullies and sand dungs, causing erosion and silting of community streams. She stressed that the company should return and carry out a thorough remediation of the land.
Also speaking, the Kindred Head of Epheche Akpali Community, Chief Samuel Ameh, confirmed that the village released 62 hectres of land to Dangote Mining Company for five years, explaining that the terms for the lease included a post lease remediation of the land.
Chief Ameh insisted that since the company has now moved to another community, it should remediate the Epheche Akpali land and conduct post impact assessment.
Executive Coordinator of Advocacy and, Empowerment Centre, Nne Umoren, expressed shock at the level of devastation of the land, and wondered why the National Standard and, Regulatory Enforcement Agency, and other relevant agencies and State Ministry of Environment have not acted to ensure proper remediation.
In a statement, Umoren assured the women that it was their right to live in a clean and healthy environment, and to engage in meaningful econonmc ventures. She called on organisations, government and land developers to adhere to environmental best practices, for the purpose of environmental sustainability, peace, and progress.
