DRIVING through Olapeleke is akin to sifting through the crust of a previous existence. Walking through the village, you could be forgiven for likening it to the ruins of medieval Nigeria. Even in the scenic lull of a sultry afternoon, the village repulses like dead embryo. The houses shoulder each other in forced communion, their decrepit angles towering like violent picture-puzzles in a story that only ruins could reveal.
In harsh sunlight and rainy clime, Olapeleke popularly called ‘Lapeleke, off the highway to Abeokuta, Ogun State’s capital city, presents a portrait of desolateness and neglect. Seasons bring nothing to this gulch save a harsh intimate anecdote painfully scrawled here and there, along barren footpaths, and on paint and stone of several houses tottering and yawning, like vastly crushed faces with holes big enough for ants, rodents and bats to dart in and out of their gaping chasms.
Amid the bleakness, Asabi Ibigbami’s voice peals very sadly, like the tragic knell of a civilisation in its final death pangs. “Olapeleke has been reduced to nothing. Today, we live like a ghost town. We can barely feed…I have to depend on hand outs from the Baale (traditional ruler) and Asiwaju (a village chief) to survive. They give me food and money to feed every day. This is because I am a childless widow and I have nobody else to help me but I didn’t start out like this. In my youth, I was a successful farmer.
“I farmed palm kernel seeds and produced palm oil. I grew cocoa, ofada rice and cassava. I was enjoying my life until the cement company (WAPCO now Lafarge-WAPCO) arrived to take our land. At their arrival, I lost everything. Like most of my peers, I lost my farmland and I lost profit…Now I have lost my youth. I am 92-years old and there is nothing I can do for myself right now. I have to beg in order to eat daily,” laments Ibigbami.
Ibigbami’s lamentation echoes the sad narrative that has become a familiar refrain of the surviving natives of ‘Olapeleke. From the din, Felicia Adeyinka, 78, recalls very sadly, the fateful morning that her house came crashing like a sand-castle six years ago. Adeyinka claims she lost her inheritance and home to incessant barrage of flying rock debris from neighbouring West African Portland Cement (WAPCO), now Lafarge-WAPCO’s limestone blasting from its quarry.
“I almost died because my house collapsed while I was inside. It was around 10 am and I was about leaving for Itori, a neighbouring community, to pay for the supply of my goods. Earlier, while I was doing my laundry, I noticed severe cracks in the wall of the building and I made a mental note to send my son to buy cement so we could renovate the building in order to prevent it from collapsing like so many other buildings in the area.
But no sooner I entered than the house it started cracking; I heard some rumbling and before I could gather my wits, the walls started to give way. I screamed in fear and thus alerted those who were playing a game of Ludo at the back of the building. They scampered to safety and later returned to rescue me because I had been trapped in the house. A few seconds later, the house collapsed totally. My house collapsed because it was weakened by flying rock debris from LafargeWAPCO’s limestone quarry she claims.”
In the wake of the cement company’s mining activities in the area, the inhabitants report virtual destruction of their houses and other property.
Baale of Olapeleke, Chief Gabriel Akinremi, states that over 70 houses have been destroyed of the 110 houses that survived from his father’s era. Back in 2001, the community claimed that over 100 houses completely collapsed under the incessant barrage of limestone raining like hailstones on the community in the course of the cement company’s quarrying activities.
Living in a ‘ghost town’
Thirteen years on, The Nation findings at the community reveal that less than 30 houses are left standing in good condition of the 110 reported by Baale Akinremi; and the few left standing have being patched all over to prevent cracks allegedly wrought on them by LafargeWAPCO’s flying rock debris from aggravating. According to Baale Akinremi, many of the families that lack the strength and wherewithal to renovate their homes have deserted the village in droves to live in more habitable settlements outside the community.
“We are only asking LafargeWAPCO to come and rebuild the houses destroyed by the blasting of limestone in our community. We do not have any where to go because this is our ancestral home and the only place we have as home. As you can see, so many buildings have gone with the blasting of limestone. We have lost our river to their blasting and quarry and some families whose houses have been destroyed now squat with neighbours whenever they come visiting.
“About 75 per cent of Olapeleke’s land served as LafargeWAPCO’s quarry leading to the destruction of our land, river and farm land. As we speak, people no longer have any land to farm because about 75 per cent of the community’s farmland had also been lost to LafargeWAPCO’s quarry,” says Baale Akinremi.
Corroborating him, Pa Theophilus Amoo Ibigbami, 87, laments that Olapeleke was rendered totally comatose by LafargeWAPCO’s limestone quarrying in the area. “My family house among several other houses in Olapeleke had been destroyed by the blasting of limestone by LafargeWAPCO. We were just lucky in this community; otherwise somebody would have been killed. This is because whenever the blasting took place, usually around 2 pm, the whole community got shaken to its foundation. There was a particular day when the blasting took place and some broken rocks of limestone flew out and hit one of the cows reared in the community killing the animal instantly. Imagine if the victim was a human being and not an animal, such a person would have died,” says Ibigbami.
Ibigbami claims he joined the Building Section of LafargeWAPCO on September 28, 1958 and, according to him, he was one of its pioneer workers. “I was around when the construction company handling the building of the factory gave a ridiculous compensation to those whose land had been acquired for the company’s activities. The then elders of the community, including my father, were very warm to the government official who handed out money in envelope. By the time the hapless villagers opened their envelopes to count their money, they discovered that it contained a paltry amount which is equivalent to today’s N0.50 Kobo. The money was packed in the envelopes in the smallest denominations to deceive the natives into believing that it was plenty,” he recalls very sadly.
Dried up rivers, disappearing farmlands
Asiwaju of Olapeleke, Chief Amos Odekunle, laments the loss of his community’s once thriving agricultural sector. He also bemoans the community’s vanished river, attributing the loss to LafargeWAPCO’s mining activities. Prior to the cement company’s arrival, the community had five rivers which were used for irrigation, fishing and drinking purposes. The rivers were Ewekoro, Amititi, Sofuntere, Abalaye and Olorekore, according to the villagers. Asiwaju Amos claims that LafargeWAPCO channelled the five rivers away into its quarry thus causing the five rivers to dry out. Consequently, the community’s cash crops and trees, including cocoa, kolanut and palm trees, withered and gradually died off.
The Nation findings reveal a township struggling to deal with the tragic loss of its once flourishing agricultural economy. There are no flourishing cocoa, rice, palm kernel and cocoyam farms anymore; a dense forest and swamp of shrubs and thickets currently dominate the wide expanse of land that was once the lure that attracted itinerant contract farmhands, agricultural entrepreneurs, farmers, middlemen, transporters and traders to mention a few, to the erstwhile prosperous enclave of Olapeleke.
“Today, the few amongst us who still have the nerve to farm engage in subsistence farming. And the proceeds are always very poor. Very few crops are grown here now; besides cassava and maize, you cannot find any cash crop surviving on our land. It’s as if our land has become totally barren and infertile for the large scale agriculture it was known for,” says Odekunle.
Like Asiwaju Odekunle, Apeke Akinremi, 90, bemoans the sad loss that befell her at the arrival of the cement factory in their neighbourhood. Apeke, a widow and mother of the current Baale of Olapeleke, Chief Akinremi, recalls with nostalgia the good old days when agriculture was the mainstay of the rural community.
“Back then, when we were young and my husband was alive, we were into farming. We harvested and sold our farm produce, including cocoa, palm oil, and other cash crops at great profit. But our farmlands were destroyed when LafargeWAPCO took over our land and we lost our natural resources. We suffered a lot after our land was forcibly taken away…we got only N0.50 kobo as compensation. Today, we are recognised as the actual land owners yet we are suffering. That is because there is no one to fight for us,” cries the 90-year-old widow.
Before the decline…
Olapeleke was a small community of about 200, 000 people in the Ewekoro Local Government Area of Ogun State. Prior to the arrival of the West African Portland Cement (WAPCO), now Lafarge-WAPCO, the township boasted of a rich endowment of natural resources and agricultural cashcrops, including cocoa, kolanut, cocoyam, cassava, rice (its fabled highly nutritious and expensive ofada rice), tomatoes, pepper, groundnut, plantain, sugar cane, maize to mention a few. However, the township’s most valuable and expensive natural endowment is its abundant limestone deposits.
Olapeleke sits atop limestone, the major raw material used in the production of cement. When the discovery of the natural resource in the Ewekoro Township became public in the early 1950s, residents of the community anticipated a remarkable fillip to their thriving agricultural economy. “The few enlightened ones among our fathers thought the discovery of the raw material indicated the arrival of a more fortunate epoch for our community. They thought the community could maximize and leverage on the benefits that a massive exploration of the resource was bound to churn out,” says Chief Akinremi.
But they were wrong, he notes. According to him, by the time LafargeWAPCO commenced mining of the raw material, the community came to a sad realisation that rather than bring great fortune and prosperity to their doorstep, the company’s limestone exploration wrought untold loss and hardship on Olapeleke.
A curious case of CSR
In the absence of a dependable Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) regulatory framework in the country, most corporations are at liberty to commit discretionary percentages of their profit to CSR initiatives. To this end, LafargeWAPCO allegedly commits N55 million annually to CSR initiatives across its 12 host communities, including Olapeleke, Akinbo, Oke-Oko, Egbado, Sekoni, Olujobi, Papalanto, Ewekoro, Egba -Ajegunle, Elebute, Alagunto and Itori.
According to Baale Akinremi, of the figure, N9 million gets to Olapeleke for community development. Further breakdown of the figure, according to him, is as follows: “Out of the amount, N5.5 million is earmarked for capital projects (projects like road construction). The company gives the money to the community, they ask us to tell them what we need and they bring in their own contractor to do it for us. About N1 million is earmarked as bursary for 10 students at N200, 000 each); N250, 000 as support for five aged people; Youth Empowerment, N700, 000; while five farmers are given N500, 000 each, to mention a few.”
The ‘Olapeleke head chief explains that when the recipients of the money eventually get it, they bring it back to the community where by consensus, the money is split among greater number of recipients. “Take the N50, 000 they give as support to the aged, for instance, when an aged recipient gets the money, he or she brings it back to the community where it is shared with about 11 or 15 fellow aged persons. Thus eventually, even though LafargeWAPCO claims to have given N50, 000 as support to one aged person, the money is actually shared among the specified recipient and about 11 to 15 others. At the end, each beneficiary gets a paltry N2, 000, N3, 000 or N5, 000. We are forced to adopt this method in order to make the money go round those who desperately need financial support within the community,” he discloses.
The traditional ruler explains that the same formula is adopted in sharing N500, 000 given to five farmers. Eventually, what will get to each farmer is never up to N50, 000. What gets to each farmer most times is as low as N10, 000. “Tell me, what could anyone do with such a paltry sum?” he laments, adding that the money allocated to his community was recently increased to N11 million annually.
‘Even as Olapeleke withers and dies, LafargeWAPCO smiles to the bank’
While Baale Akinremi complains that LafargeWAPCO’s annual N55 million CSR fund to its 12 host communities is too meagre and unrepresentative of the immense profit the company grosses from its mining and cement production activities in Ewekoro LGA. In the wake of the traditional ruler’s outcry, LafargeWAPCO recently published audited reports and profit accounts of its business enterprise in the country.
Key extracts of the audited report and accounts of LafargeWAPCO for the year ended December 31, 2013 show that profit after tax grew by 92 per cent to N28.2 billion in 2013 as against N14.7 billion recorded in 2012. Profit before tax grew by 30 per cent from N21.3 billion to N27.7 billion. Turnover increased by 12 per cent to N98.8 billion as against N87.9 billion in 2012. The company witnessed significant reduction in interest expenses N5.5 billion to N3.8 billion as a result of the reduction in interest charges due to the full repayment of the Naira syndicated bank loans. Consequently, basic earnings per share grew from N4.90 to N9.42; an increase of 92 per cent.
Lafarge WAPCO’s new ready-mix concrete business contributed N1.6 billion to the total turnover of N98.8 billion. According to the report, the company not only focused on increasing its turnover but has ensured that its operational costs are curtailed without compromising on service to its customers. The strong operational performance and efficient working capital management resulted in an increase in cash holdings of N11.5 billion. With the company being in a more cash positive position, it was able to reduce its debt by 42 per cent, paying off its variable rate medium-term syndicated Naira and foreign currency loans ahead of tenor. Accordingly, Lafarge WAPCO’s debt position closed 2013 at N21.5 billion comprising a fixed rate corporate bond and a power intervention fund loan. The debt-to-equity ratio halved to 23 per cent in 2013 as against 55 per cent in 2012.
Already, emerging results showed positive outlook for the current business year. Lafarge WAPCO recorded significant growths in sales and profit in the first quarter of this year as pre-tax profit totalled N8.62 billion in three months.
The interim report and accounts of LafargeWAPCO for the three-month ended March 31, 2014 show that sales rose by 16 per cent while pre and post tax profits grew by 20 per cent and 34 per cent respectively. The report showed that turnover rose to N27.03 billion in the first quarter of 2014 as against N23.24 billion recorded in the comparable period of 2013. Profit before tax increased from N7.20 billion to N8.62 billion. Profit after tax also rose from N6.07 billion to N8.15 billion. Earnings per share grew by 34 per cent from N2.02 to N2.71.
The company indicated that net finance cost reduced from N980 million to N760 million due to lower interest charges following the full repayment of the Naira syndicated bank loans. Investment income simultaneously grew by N160 million to N260 million.
The Managing Director, Lafarge Cement WAPCO Nigeria Plc, Joe Hudson, enthuses that the good performance in the first quarter was a reflection of the increasing demand for the company’s quality products and an outcome of the implementation of various volume and cost improvement strategies.
“We are especially pleased that the new line in Ewekoro continues to gain momentum and remain very optimistic about the rest of the year despite the challenging operating environment,” Hudson states.
Science explains the dilapidation of Olapeleke
In an assessment of noise and ground vibration induced during blasting operations at LafargeWAPCO’s Ewekoro limestone quarry, the results obtained indicate that the ground vibration readings fall between 0.5 mm/s and 2.1 mm/s and the noise generated during the blasting operations between 82 dB and 89 dB. These readings when compared with the limits set by FEPA (Federal Environmental Protection Agency) of 5.0 mm/s and 150 dB) all fall within the permissible limits.
However, the researchers, Afeni Thomas and Osasan Stephen of the School of Mining Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa and the Department of Mining Engineering, School of Engineering and Engineering Technology, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ondo State respectively, raise worrisome issues about the state of residential houses in the quarry’s host community. “The photographs of most structures near the quarry reveal cracks and dilapidated building walls,” they say.
To achieve the study objective, vibro-monitor equipment was used to take readings related to noise generated and ground vibrations during all blasting operations that took place in the quarry for a period of one month. As well, a digital camera was used to take photographs of residential structures within villages near the quarry.
According to the research findings, “Ground vibrations and air blasts which are an integral part of rock blasting are unavoidable. Vibrations resulting from blast operations travel from the source to the receiver both through the ground (ground-borne) and air (airborne). Vibrations travelling at sufficient speed may cause buildings and structures to shake and may even cause structural damage. The intensity of vibration plays a very critical role in all types of adverse effects. It is very important to control and measure the vibration with a great degree of accuracy.
“When pressures are generated by explosives in a borehole, pressure pulses are produced in the surrounding ground as the wall of the borehole expands and contracts. These pulses quickly produce seismic waves as the strain energy, imparted into the ground, is propagated outwards. Two basic wave types are generated: body waves, which travel through the interior of the ground and surface waves, produced when body waves impinge upon a free surface or its equilibrium is suddenly disturbed. The waves are all characterized by an exponential decrease in particle oscillation amplitude as distance from the energy source increases. There are two kinds of body waves produced when an elastic body deforms during the transmission of seismic energy. The first one is known as the dilational, longitudinal or P-wave and the second is frequently termed the distortional or S-wave. These are surface waves that have a dominant effect in developing ground vibrations.”
Prediction and parameters
The level of stress produced from wave motion as a result of blasting can cause damage to building structures of nearby residents by causing dynamic stresses that exceed the strength of building material or rock material. So ground vibration effects induced by blasting on building structures and human beings need to be predicted, monitored and controlled.
The findings show that the average noise of 85.5 dBA and ground vibration level of 1.32 mmls, are still within the permissible limits of the national interim guidelines established in Nigeria by FEPA even though stringent measures had been purportedly developed by LafargeWAPCO to reduce the vibration and noise levels.
“But if the results of the ground vibration were compared with the guide lines from the US Bureau of Mines, the effects were strongly perceptible to humans (with readings that fell within 0.81 mmls and 2.1 mmls.
Above all, the results of this study indicate that the effect of ground vibration is still within the limits, tolerated in Nigeria. Also the operation should have little or no effect on nearby buildings since the quarry is about four kilometres from residential areas. However, most buildings in these settlements are full of cracks. One would wonder if the effects of ground vibration could have caused these. Nevertheless, looking through the affected buildings, one would observe that they are constructed with mud and they have no concrete foundations.
This led to uncontrollable absorption of water during the raining season by these structures.
Apart from this, some of the structures are old and this may account for their dilapidated state. Above all, one cannot entirely prove that the cracks are the result from the ground vibrations generated in 2005, because before the advent of the current blasting technique in the quarry, former blasting techniques may not have been so environmental friendly, coupled with the nature of these buildings (structures without foundations).
In a separate assessment of the health and environmental challenges of the cement company’s activities on residents of the host communities in the area, however, another scholarly team, comprising Aribigbola Afolabi, Fatusin Afolabi Francis and Fagbohunka Adejompo of the Department of Geography and Planning Sciences, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State, notes that another factor that has contributed to poor environment at Olapeleke is the rising of dust during blasting and haulaging.
“In this case, the health concerns of the work force come to the fore. Silica exposure is an ancient hazard which has remained a serious threat to many workers, including sand blasters, stone crushers, those involved in drilling, quarrying and tunnelling through the earth crust. Diseases associated with the inhalation of silica-containing dust include silicosis, chronic airways obstruction and bronchitis, tuberculosis and lung cancer.
Many workers, including those in high-risk settings, are exposed to crystalline silica. Wetting of the site road with water is carried out to reduce only the fugitive dust. Empirical observation reveals that while most of the workers are protected, the residents in the community are exposed to the dust during production process. Out of the 172 people interviewed 34 or 19.7 per cent reported prevalence of asthma, while 19 or 11 per cent reported exposure to heart diseases,” they disclose.
Besides this, the level of vibration and noise by earthmovers at quarries are supposed to be kept under control at least to fall within the limit allowed by the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (FEPA). These factors are monitored using vibrogram while keeping the vibration level at less than 50 mm per second and the noise at below 120 dB (decibel).
Proper stemming of the explosives which are dangerous in themselves, in the dug holes is supposed to be encouraged to avoid surface stemming. Proper and burying of the explosives at the appropriate dept ensures reduced noise and controlled blasting. The empirical investigation by the authors reveals that there has not been substantial compliance with this guideline thereby exposing residents to avoidable inconveniences.
A stitch in time…
The Ewekoro limestone quarry has since 2005 allegedly activated an effective proper blasting design and firing pattern. Also, some of the ground vibrations were supposedly cut off from propagating further into the surroundings by digging a drainage ditch with a perimeter of 3 m (surely a perimeter of 3 km or a width of 3 m) round the quarry face as blasting progresses. This allegedly serves as a discontinuity to the Primary-Secondary-Relay (P-S-R) waves that generate from seismic action. And since air blasts are always considerably easier to control than ground vibrations, once air blast levels are under control, attempts should be made to reduce the vibration amplitude, according to the researchers.
The separate studies thus recommend that the company must sustain the current blasting precautions and at the same time, the following recommendations could be adopted to maintain higher standards, according to the researchers: “For ground vibration control, the following should be married along with their ongoing practices if found missing: minimise the charge per delay of explosives, exercise strict control over the spacing and orientation of all blast drill holes, minimise the degree of confinement by increasing the free face and use a minimum of practicable sub-drilling. For noise control, use hole-spacing and burden which will ensure that the explosive force is just sufficient to break the ore to the required size and eliminate the exposed detonating cord and secondary blasting.”
They recommend that there is the need for the government to intensify effort in the implementation of environmental impact assessment of cement industries now and in the future considering the nature of its impact on all the facets of human life. They also recommend that the excavated area should be properly filled to forestall the contamination of groundwater, surface water and aquatic lives, the original state of the excavated area should be attained.
Moreover, since a large volume of vehicles would be attracted to the cement factory and mining site resulting in soil surface compaction, there is need to develop appropriate highways widened to reduce hazards on the environment. The government the industry and the community should be encouraged to be partners in progress. They can jointly be involved in monitoring environmental resources depletion, especially the compliance level of the plant to minimum standards for sustainable and pollution free society, advise the scholars.
But that is on the long run, on the short run, residents of Olapeleke would like the cement factory to take urgent steps to rebuild all of the homes that had been destroyed in their community due to its limestone quarrying in the area.
“Or let them just relocate us like they are planning to relocate the residents of Oke-Oko community. After exhausting all the good that we have been blessed with here (in Olapeleke), they (LafargeWAPCO) suddenly decided to abandon us and move on to more profitable sites. You say some argue that our houses collapse easily because many of them were built with mud; why didn’t they collapse before LafargeWAPCO arrived to destroy our land in search of limestone? We were living in peace and prosperity before LafargeWAPCO arrived. We deserve to be compensated for the devastation that has been wrought on us,” says Baale Akinremi.
But despite Baale Akinremi’s heartfelt plea to the management of LafargeWAPCO to come to his community’s aid, Pa Ibigbami considers his plea a futile enterprise. “With all that we have done in the recent past, I no longer have any hope that help or succour will come our way from anywhere – be it from the government or LafargeWAPCO. I just don’t think there is any hope for us. There is no hope for us anymore,” he says with certainty and regret that grows from dealing with the same old grief for too many years. And that is the real tragedy of Olapeleke.
