Except urgent steps are taken, the sleepy community of Maiganga in Gombe State may be up in arms against Maiganga Coal Mining Company Limited, and its parent firm, Ashaka Cement PLC (AshakaCem). The Community is accusing the firm of pollution.
In a September 26 petition, signed by its Chairman, Gibar Sobtar, and sent to the Minister for the Environment, the community alleged that the firm’s mining activities have made life unbearable for the people.
The situation, it claimed, was exacerbated by the failure of the government and the firm to fulfil their pledge to relocate the community and provide it with potable water.
“Our collective outcry against the dangerous and increased hazard of coal mining in our community is not unknown to you, and to the wider world. It has become imperative to lodge this further petition, as satisfactory steps are not being taken to mitigate the existential hazards we are confronted with. An worse, we are alarmed by the seeming expansion of coal mining activities in our community, which has evidently aggravated the environmental degradation, pollution and other adverse consequences of the exploitation of coal resources in our community,” the petition read in part.
According to Sobtar, on more than two occasions, inhabitants of the community, including men, women, youth and even children, have had to organise mass demonstrations, targeted at drawing attention to an alleged inhuman treatment the community has continued to suffer from the AshakaCem.
He is sad that in spite of the several promises made by the mine operator, nothing has been done. For instance, he explained that in 2007, AshakaCem promised to relocate residents of the community to a safer area; construct an eight-kilometre road linking the village to the main road; build a good school and a skills acquisition centre for women and the youth.
Regrettably, nine years after, he said, the company has continued to renege on her promises. So far, only 66 houses of the 300 houses envisaged have been built, with only one borehole and an already dilapidated two blocks of classrooms. Of the three boreholes, only one is functional.
“It is a litany of broken promises. Even the houses they built for us are of very low quality. In less than eight years of relocation, the houses have started collapsing. The few standing ones have cracked walls and looks like anthills,” Sobtar noted in the petition, adding that the community is further enraged by the continued denial of the AshakaCem, which claims that her cement is of high quality, and that houses built by it does not collapse.
Yet, more annoying to the Maiganga community is the confiscation, encroachment, or land grabbing by the firm without compensation. The petitioners maintained that their farmlands were taken over by the company and we were not well compensated. The failure, neglect or refusal to provide speedy and adequate compensation for the farmlands remain a critical failure of the firm.
“This is largely the grievance that prompted the demonstration of July 2014. This matter still remains unresolved. The increasingly shrinking farmland or the dispossession of our community of their valuable farmland has added to increasing unemployment, and pauperisation of our people. Our people have been farming on the land for hundreds of years before the mining company discovered coal on our land. We have been displaced as a consequence. The dispersal and dispossession of our people continues, even as mining activities continue to bulldoze its way relentlessly into the surrounding community.
‘’The Mining Company, a subsidiary of Ashaka Cement, promised to employ at least 80 per cent of their unskilled workforce from the community, but the company has reneged on that promise as well. At present, to the best of our information, the company employs only five people from the community on permanent and pensionable basis. This is double jeopardy. They take away our farmlands, and also deny our people employment in the mine,” he said.
The community is further worried that the activities of mining is taking a toll on her environment. They explained that during mining activities, significant volumes of earth are displaced, and the resulting rock waste can be harmful to the environment. They contend that surface mines has removed acres of vegetation and altered topographic features of their community, such as hills and valleys, leaving soil exposed for erosion resulting from ecological disturbances to pollution of air, land and water, instability of soil and rock masses, and radiation hazards.
Though the community is still oblivious of the health hazards that may be occasioned by oral mining have not been sufficiently explained to the community, nonetheless, the borehole built for the community, does not produce clean water. Sobtar noted that information by environmental experts has it that colour change in the community’s drinking water suggest that, LarfargeAfrica, the parent company of AshakaCem, has not caused its shaft to the prescribed level of thickness that would have prevented the coal belt methane from escaping into the water table.
Within the European Union (EU), Sobtar said, such would never happen because the thickness of the shaft is one of the three basic conditions that must be met regarding coal mining.
Closely connected to the water issue is where the coal mining confronts agriculture, the core of the community’s livelihood. This is at two levels. The first level is the drastic decline in yield which the community traces to the fine dust from the mine which settles on the land, inhibiting productivity generally, and pollution in particular.
“Furthermore, mining in the area has not only changed the pattern of the land but has greatly contributed to degradation of the environment; the effect can be clearly seen in the loss of arable land for agriculture as well as change in the land cover feature such as vegetation and farm lands which are converted into mining ponds,” the chairman explained.
Sobtar said several engagements with the firm’s top management, including the managing director, had only yielded unfulfilled promises. This is why the community is seeking the intervention of the federal and state governments to, as a matter of urgency, intervene and save the people from a perceived “injustice by the management of Ashaka Cement Company.”
The negligence of Lafarge in failing to caste its shaft to the prescribed level of thickness that would have prevented the coal belt methane from escaping into the water table, is anything but a disgraceful double standard, considering that the French firm would not do the same thing in the EU or North America.
Maiganga residents further see the proposal by Lafarge to build a coal fired power plant as an “insensitive, irresponsible, corporate arrogance of adding salt to injury.”
Sobtar explained that this corporate hypocrisy is even more poignant considering Lafarge’s home country, France, hosted the Global Conference on Climate Change last December .
“The environmental degradation is a looming disaster. The fiendish type of ecological cancer that plagued the Niger Delta as a consequence of oil pollution has reared its demonic hydra head in the Northeast of Nigeria. The landmark accord signed following deliberations at COP 21 commits nearly every country to lowering plant-warming greenhouse gas emissions to help stave off the most drastic effects of climate change is being celebrated. France’s corporation, Lafarge, is in Nigeria violating those agreements,” the community said.
Much as the Climate Change obligations makes marginal allowances for developing countries, it triggers a fundamental shift away from investment in coal, oil and gas as primary energy sources toward zero-carbon energy sources like wind, solar and nuclear power.
We’ve settled them, say Lafarge, AshakaCem
When contacted, Lafarge’s Head of Communication, Mr. Ademola Ojolowo, said the inhabitants of the areas involved are predominantly farmers, living in thatch houses. Their proximity to the proposed coal mine, he explained, necessitated their relocation to a place of choice (community and local government) away from the coal mine and while AshakaCem built and provided modern houses for them. He listed the concerned villages to include Maiganga, Jauro Kelvin (Lakatangarin) and Garkoyel. This was done before start-up of the quarry operations.
Ojolowo said the exploration and land acquisition were carried out between 2006 and 2007; while the Gombe State Ministry of Land and Survey, Akko LGA and AshakaCem team conducted the house to house census of the affected communities and landed properties. The exact number of houses found in the original village as at the census period was built and distributed to the people of Maiganga.
According to an email received from the management of AshakaCem, the Gombe State Ministry of Lands & Survey carried out the necessary assessment and recommended due compensation to the farmland owners, based on the official rates, which was paid in full by AshakaCem to all identified and deserving land owners in addition to matching bonuses.
A compensation analysis allegedly prepared by the Gombe State Ministry of land and Survey in July 2007, indicates that in Akko emirate zone (Kayelbaga and others) a total compensated farmlands was 283. In the same period, Pindiga emirate zone (Maiganga and others), 117 were compensated.
So far, Ashakacem claims to have provided several social amenities, including three boreholes, women skill centre, built and equipped maternity clinic, electrification of the entire village, two blocks of two classrooms each to Maiganga village as part of its CSR. Other villages such as Lakwalak, Kalkulum, Kayelbaga, Piu and Tudunkuka, the cement firm claims, have also benefited in terms of block of classrooms, maternity clinic, road, electrification and boreholes.
In terms of local employment, the community youths, AshakaCem insists, have benefited immensely by being gainfully employed in its mining operation. Of the 35 permanent staff employed by AshakaCem in Maiganga, local content accounts for 27; while of the 92 contract staff, 85 are local indigenes.
In May, last year, AshakaCem and the local communities signed a five-year agreement. AshakaCem explained that the Federal Ministry of Mines and Solid Minerals had written and raised some observations on the documents, and was in the process of finalising the reviews.
“Associating health challenges being faced by some individuals with our operation may not be correct in many contexts, unless proven scientifically. AshakaCem is committed to Zero Harm and the well-being of people within and around our operations. We have a moral duty to protect the people working for and around us by caring for the people and the environment,” the statement read, adding that in doing this, the firm ensures the efficiency of its processes for continued profitability and achievement of its set goals.
The firm assured that it will continue to take proactive steps towards protecting and preserving the quality of its environment using global standards as a benchmark and staying committed to its Clean, Green, Zero Harm (CGHZ) objective and Sustainability Ambitions. It said key components of the firm’s environmental policy as an organisation include reclamation, back-filling and tree planting.
“These are integral part of our operations which we carry out from time to time and without prompting,” the statement concluded.
