In the past 20 years, the Lagos State Government has lost huge revenue to sand dredging. Despite the creation of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources Development in 2007, the dredgers’activities has not abated. But all hopes, says the Commissioner for Waterfront, Adesegun Oniru, is not lost in stopping the illegal dredgers to generate revenue for the government. Seyi Odewale reports.
It was a sunny Tuesday, with people feeling the heat from the scorching sun. To Ben Igwe (not real name), it was another day for business; to attend to prospective house owners, who are in need of sand dredged from the nearby Lagoon in Ibeshe, a satellite of Ikorodu in Lagos State.
Business, according to Igwe, has been dull of late. No thanks to the depletion of dredged sharp sand from the Lagoon. All year round, sand is always available for sale no matter the tonnage and quantity needed, but lately it has not been encouraging following a drop in sale.
His colleagues, who use their individual canoes and motor boats to convey sand from the depth of the Lagoon to the shore, were equally not left out. They were on the beach relaxing in their shacks. Tipper owners, pay loader and excavator drivers were not left out; they also felt the seemingly low patronage. Reason: not much sand. But the drought, they believe, would soon be over with the coming of the rains.
“Of late, business has been very dull. We have not had much patronage; in fact, we are just dredging sand from the lagoon. As you can see, not much sand is on the ground. But before the week runs out, we would have pumped much sand on shore for our customers,” he said.
To them, the business has sustained them for years. One of them, popularly called Lawori because he hails from Awori stock of Yoruba tribe, said he abandoned a local theatre group some years ago to join those in the business. “There is no day I don’t make enough money to cater for my family. I send my kids to school from whatever I realise from here,” he said in Yoruba language.
Same for truck and pay loader operators; they make their money loading and conveying sand to where they are needed.
Lawori said though Ibeshe is known for dredged sharp sand, soft ones could be got on request. “These types of sand are got from the forests and bushes. We often get requests from land owners who have unlevelled grounds asking us to look for people who need to sand fill their sites. But this is red earth sand, not white ones used for building,” he said, adding that sharp sand are usually dredged from the sea bed and the lagoon.”
However, the rains, which they are earnestly waiting for, may likely bring woes to others whose farmlands, rivers and beaches have been destroyed by their activities and those of their colleagues mining sands from farms and forests.
From Epe to Ikorodu; Lekki to Ojo and Badagry, sand dredging along the coast line over the years has been a source of ‘cool’ revenue for those in it, while those in the upland are smiling to the banks with proceeds from sand mining in their domain. People make tremendous fortunes oblivious of the effects their activities may have on the environment and its people.
But the Commissioner for Waterfront, Adesegun Oniru, said no illegal dredging goes on along the coastline of the state.
At the Ibeshe Beach, a cubic of sand, an equivalent of a scoop of the pay loader, costs N1,800 and 20 of such fills a 20-ton tipper, excluding the amount for hiring the truck. Sands, according to those in the business, vary considering where they are got from. Sharp sands are usually dredged from the sea bed and the lagoon, while soft ones used for plastering and smoothing of wall surfaces, are usually mined from farmlands and forests. They are in local parlance called Dagbolu, excavated from virgin forests and bushes. There are others from river beds and banks.
But Lagos State, which is blessed with this natural mineral resources, has over the years, suffered from the activities of illegal dredging. It has lost, considerably, huge revenues to illegal dredging. For over 20 years, in the words of Oniru, the state has lost an unquantifiable amount of revenue. “It was over 20 years of revenue loss to the state, but financially, it is impossible to quantify. I would not want to speculate on the amount that has been lost,” he told The Nation.
According to him, it is not that nobody is monitoring activities in that area, but the office saddled with the responsibility is overwhelmed by the activities of the illegal dredgers.
“It is not that there is nobody controlling or monitoring those activities in the past. There was an office called mineral resources that was meant to control that, but those activities were so many that, that office was overwhelmed. The state was then losing so much revenue to illegal dredging,” he said.
Oniru said since his ministry took off in 2007, sanity has returned to that sector. “As far as I am concerned, we have 25 companies legally permitted with Category A permit to dredge in Lagos State. Over 120 companies were carrying out what was called illegal dredging until this ministry was created in 2007. Since that time, we have had applications from up to 130 companies that want to dredge in Lagos, but we have about 25 legally permitted companies with dredgers to operate on our waters.
“So far, various arrests have been made throughout the state. People who think they can beat the state and can operate illegally without being noticed are being arrested. We carry out raids; we go out with police units; we make arrests and prosecution then follows. We have laws to back what we are doing. If we think that no illegal activities are going on, on our waters we would be lying to ourselves. But we are also trying our best to combat these activities. There are some areas where dredging is viable. If you talk of Ikorodu, Ajah,Awoyaya, Ayun, going towards Epe, where different dredging are taking place. What we have tried to do is to spread them across the state. So, there are some people in Ojo and Amuwo-Badagry axis also dredging there,” Oniru said.
Environmental impacts of sand mining and dredging, experts say, are disastrous. According to them, soil erosion, formation of sinkholes, loss of bio-diversity, soil contamination resulting from leakages of chemicals into the soil, deforestation, coastal erosion and loss of aquatic lives are possible effects of dredging and mining. For instance, dredging in some climes has been largely responsible for the near extinction of gharials (a species of crocodiles) and sea turtles, which depend on sandy beaches for their nesting.
The demand for sands for both road and building construction has increased sand mining and dredging leading to a high demand for low-cost sand. Every undeveloped piece of land is made susceptible to mining while the coastal towns and river beds are being encroached upon considerably by dredgers.
A source at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources Development, who pleaded anonymity, said sand mining and dredging in Lagos are being poorly monitored. Making a distinction between sand mining and dredging, he said people involved in the business seemed oblivious of the havoc they cause the environment and the beaches in Lagos.
“Unfortunately, the sector is poorly monitored. People in this business use the cover of the night to perpetrate their activities. We are not in charge of sand dredging; this is under the supervision of our sister ministry, Ministry of Water Front. But, how can these beaches be monitored? This is because many illegal dredging take place in the night. Although, some are licensed by the government, how much revenue does the state make from this sector?” he asked.
Sand mining, the source said, is worse as there are cases of illegal sites, which are giving the state a lot of headaches. “Take, for instance, the dump site at Olusosun in Ojota. It was as a result of excavation that took place years back when the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway was constructed. Now see how many years it is taking the state government to fill and its impact on the environment,” he said.
On how the sites are monitored, he said the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources Development issues permits to prospective miners and ensures that the sites are not degraded beyond remedy. “Before we issue any permit, we will first visit the site to carry out what we call Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to determine whether it will not degrade the site or cause any harm to those living around there if sand mining is done on the site. But these days we are often confronted with series of interests that are conflicting, even when we tried to apply the law, some forces seem to hamper our operations and most of these illegal mining are done at night and it is a cause for worry for us,” he said.
To regulate dredging, Oniru said different categories of permits are issued to prospective dredgers. The first category of permit, according to him is A, which is given to dredger owners. It allows people with this permit to only dredge sand for those who stock pile to sell.
Category B, he said, is for those who stockpile sand for sale; the third category is for those who manually dredge sand from the rivers and creeks, using canoes and motor boats. These permits are renewable yearly.
Noting that measures introduced will enable the state recoup whatever lost through illegal activities, Oniru added: “I want to assure you that at the end of the day, everything the state had lost would be got back. This is because it is a mineral resource that the state is blessed with and there is plenty of it. We have it in shallow waters, streams and creeks that will need to be deepened.There are enough sands for us to continue dredging for the next 30 years without any problem.”
