By our Reporter

Esa Oke kingdom, and one of its numerous satellite villages, Kajola may not have ever experienced the pains and hardship associated with gold mining sites of Itagunmodi, Ijaregbe, Ibodi, Ifeware, Iyanfoworogi, all in Ilesa Township area or Ilahun-Ijesa in obokun Local Government area of Osun State, but certainly many horror tales of poverty, disease and deaths, emanating from these communities are no stranger to the indegines.

Since the 1920s, when artisninal gold mining started in Itagunmodi, a suburb village, off Ibodi, another rustic village along the Ilesa-Ile Ife expressway, the community have not known peace, nor any viable development. Only sad tales of environmental despoliation and degradation, water pollution and reduction of agrarian life to abject desolution.

For instance, www.focusmagazineonline.com investigations revealed that in Ifewara, Ibodi, anfd Itagunmodi, all in Atakumosa Local Government area of Oun State, a piece of farmland with likely gold deposit, also known as ‘Gira’ goes between N60, 000 and N200, 000 depending on the bargaining power of the gold agent. But, the business is secretive, as visitors would hardly know whether the community is rich in gold deposit or not.
Further checks by www.focusmagazineonline.com revealed that if there were technological support, the device will indicate where to dig, if digging will be 10 feet to the right or left. But with this one [refering to device in his hand ], they just hit a tiny rod into the ground; once they see any sign of gold, they make payment and start digging. Eventually, they may find nothing. So, they just take risks,” says source close to the miners.
The land is sold temporarily to gold agents for extraction purposes and subsequently left uncovered or remediated thereafter.
Findings revealed that obviously, there is wealth in gold mining but it comes with great risk. “It’s too risky. Each time the ground collapses on them, they (miners) just say a short prayer, and continue with their job,” a local said.
Also, Section 19 of the Nigerian Minerals Mining Act provides for
partnerships with state governments on the exploration of solid raw materials even though mining is on the exclusive list of the federal government. The Federal Government said it has signed pacts with the relevant states under the State Minerals Resources and Environmental Management Committees (MIREMCOs), including Osun to collaborate on mine exploration. The government also said it has mobilised funds and operational vehicles to support the states, but nothing significant was met on ground when this reporter visited.
“Accordingly, we provided mobilisation funds for 10 State MIRENCOs, and also procured operational vehicles for the affected states. Our efforts in this regard are in the spirit of cooperative federalism in the sector, in order to deepen the participatory governance of the mining sector,” former Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Kayode Fayemi once said.
Reports paint heart-wrenching pictures of the depredation going on in gold-rich communities like Idoko, Ibala, Itagunmodi, Iponda, Araromi, and urban neighbourhoods in the Ijesa heartland, Osun State. Illegal miners dislocated from Zamfara by the military onslaught and other predators are said to have descended like locusts on Arimoro and Isale General areas of Ilesa – and rural communities across Obokun, Atakumosa East, Atakumosa West, and Oriade local government areas.
But, what ordinarily ought to have been a source of joy for the teeming populace of the community and the state as a whole, is now its source of sorrow.
Itagunmodi’s gold deposit has become a major impediment to peace in the community and by extension, some other villages in the area, as the influx of youths from the northern part of the country is scaring away residents, whose major occupation is farming.
Mining in Itagunmodi, a rustic village after Ibodi, along Ilesa-Ile Ife road, it was gathered by www.focusmagazinesoline.com been going on since the 1920s, but the village has never been under panic until recently when mining activities was banned in Zamfara State.
The only dividends the villagers have gotten from such a huge pillage of the land is hard life. A villager, Timothy Amandi, Tiv from Benue State, who has lived in Itagunmodi since 1959, said that large presence of the miners, has put many of the villagers at risk.
Amandi said: “All sources of water for the villagers had been contaminated because of the mining activities. We only drink from a stream called River Ayo, and we are even afraid they may extend their activities to the river because they are gradually moving towards it.
“They came with their wives and whatever they need, their wives supply them. They don’t buy from us in the village. Even accommodation, most of the houses they occupy are given out free. Many labourers also built make shift lodges where they live.”
Itagunmodi became a flashpoint immediately mining activities was banned in Zamfara State and miners from the area relocated to the sleepy town.
The attention of the state government was drawn to the situation, especially the influx of miners into the community, thereby creating panic among the residents, who pleaded with government to suspend such mining activities in the community.
As seen in the Zamfara implosion, illegal mining, if not tamed, would inexorably culminate in violent crimes such as banditry and terrorism. Stamping it out is therefore crucial. Illegal mining has been blamed as a main trigger for the explosion in banditry in Zamfara that has spread all over the North-West. The state government estimates that there are over 30,000 bandits/terrorists/kidnappers in Zamfara alone. Security agencies confirm that the bandits have forged close alliances with Islamist terrorist groups. Osun State should therefore swing into action to stop criminality and the despoliation of its natural resources.
The government must identify and punish traditional rulers and community leaders allegedly colluding with illegal miners. Some are reportedly forcibly seizing and selling people’s farmland to Chinese, Malians, and Nigerien nationals. These are also said to front for politically connected individuals who collaborate with foreign corporations; stolen gold is routinely smuggled to the United Arab Emirates through neighbouring Niger and Togo. Frequent seizures of gold from Nigeria by Nigerian and Emirati customs anti-smuggling units attest to the thriving illegal business.
Decisive action taken today would avert a replay of the 2010 lead poisoning saga in Zamfara in which over 500 children died. The tragedy was attributed to unregulated gold mining activities. Experts say this could lead to long-term health problems such as permanent learning and behavioural problems and brain damage.
According to studies, illegal explorations result in the formation of sinkholes, contamination of soil, ground, and surface water pollution, and loss of biodiversity. The economic loss is also enormous; it causes poor soil fertility and limits access to land for agriculture.
But now, like Ijarogbe community in Ilesa, like Iyanfoworogi in Atakumosa, as it has happened in Iperindo and Ifewara communities in Ilesa, Ilahun area in Obokun Local Government area, Kajola Town, a community of mainly Ila Orangun migrants in Esa Oke, Obokun Local Government Area of Osun State, is fastly under serious existentialism threat, should the nefarious activities of few uncsrupulous elements wanting to collaborate with local miners, succeed.
These dubious elements are hell-bent in colluding with illegal Chinese gold explorers and Hausas displaced from Zamfara State gold mining forests,to scavenge the entire length and breadth of the Kajola Town’s ancestral land.
The Community, presntly, do not have a Loja (Village head), as the issus is a subject of litigation at the Osun State High Court of Justice, sitting in Ijebu Ijesa. The Community has now cried out over attempts by some nefarious elements to disposed off their ancestral land.
The community has therefore, as a first step, send a ‘Save-Our-Souls’ letter to The Office of National Security Adviser (NSA) in the Presidency, the Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Inspector General of the Police (IG) to intervene and cautioned these fraudsters before the issue would snow-ball into a communual warfare. The letter was signed by representatives of the five Chieftancy familes of the Ila Community in Esa Oke kingdom.
The community had in the letter to all the relevant security agencies in the country, recalled that ‘Kajola Town, is a small agrarian community of Ila Orangun immigrants, within the larger Esa Oke Kingdom in Obokun Local Government Council, Osun State. Our forefathers have occupied the land for over 300 years. At a point, there was a boundary crisis between the larger Esa Oke and Okemesi communities in the 1930s. The case was decided in favour of the Ila Orangun migrants in a 1959 judgement delivered by Hon. Justice Ayo Irikefe (as was then known)’.
The Kajola community is said to lied along the North Western zone of Osun State. The community shared boundaries with Okemesi and Efon Alaaye in Ekiti State, Ila Orangun in the Northern zone of Osun State, Imesi Ile, Esa Odo and Ijebu Ijesa, all in Osun Eastern flank.
www.focusmagazineonline.com gathered that the ‘vast land belonging to the Kajola Town is a common patrimony of all the Omo Ila Orangun migrants. It was passed down to this generation by our forefathers. The people have no other property, anywhere else in Esa Oke Kingdom’.
The six compounds of Ila Orangun immigrants have full common access to the land, and thus it is divided among their sons for residential and farming purposes.
Already, there are some public utilities present in the fledgling community. There is a primary school, a health centre, a church, a mosque, an event center and a Federal Trunk C Road linking Imesi Ile in Osun State with Okemesi in Ekiti State, passing through the community. The rural agrarian community is also tortuously connected to the National grid for electricity supply.
There is good prospect of the community growing into a viable and vibrant economic hub in the near future if the Federal Government succeeded in completing the fast rail line from Lagos to Abuja, as the rail line will pass through the place to link Ado Ekiti and Akure in Ekiti and Ondo States with the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.
They added: ‘But about two years ago, wild rumours started flying around about surreptitious moves by some unscrupulous elements in our midst to fraudulently sell off this our commonwealth’.
The Community said ‘these rumours started like some local drinking joints talk about the activities of some crude solid mineral’s exploration merchants, in collusion with these dubious elements within the community. No right-thinking member of the community gave them any attention, thinking it was one of those local drinking joints talk. But recently, some three months ago, we started noticing that the rumours refused to go away, and to further worsen the issue, we were hearing and seeing concrete moves by these unauthorized persons in cahoots with these suspected illegal Chinese solid minerals scavengers trying to trespass into the community land’.
The letter stated that ‘the Community was duly informed by the farm workers living in the Village that they came to hold meetings with the local farmers, who are largely our farm workers promising them tantalizing rewards should they cooperate with them in their efforts to fully access the land’.
They disclosed that ‘normally, the six compounds of Omo Ila Orangun community in Kajola, Esa Oke hold a Compound meeting every fortnight, on a Saturday. All decisions taken are brought to the General Assembly for ratification the following Monday. None of the six houses have reported to the Assembly of any knowledge of the transaction, nor having any information about the surreptitious engagement of these Chinese solid mineral scavengers’.
Also, intelligence revealed that some of our sons, without any authorization whatsoever, are in cahoots with some Omiran sons, to bring in these Chinese in a most dastardly plot, to violate our common patrimony. We all know generally the level of environmental degredation, despoliation, pollution, these solid minerals have caused in various communities they have operated in. Some communities in Ijesaland, Osun State may never recover fully, from the havoc done to their land, homes and families’ ties in the name of solid minerals exploration.
It is very embarrassing that various ridiculous and unbelievable sums are being bandied about as expected pecuniary gains by these dubious elements, while no technical geo-physical survey and valuation have been done.
The community, added that ‘in general’ it wishes to alert the security agencies to the activities of these unauthorized people trying to scavenge the community’s land. They are not the Family chieftancy heads, therefore, do not represent the ‘OMO ILA ORANGUN COMMUNITY’, nor the Kajola Development Council, nor have the general consent of the Assembly of Omo Ila Orangun to enter into any transaction with anybody, for the sale or otherwise of the vast land, as the land is purely meant for residential and agricultural purposes and never for any despoliation in the name of solid minerals exploration.
The community then places a Caveat, ‘we hereby place it on notice that any financial transaction between these unauthorized elements and the solid minerals scavengers is purely a game of “Advanced Fee Fraud”‘.
The community earned buyers to be cautious of the activities of fraudsters, 419 in local parlance.
The community convened a meeting of its stakeholders, on 1 October, 2022 , with members both at home and diaspora present, to discuss the issue.
Also, Mr. Kunle Adebiyi, a U.S based son, acting on behalf of the late Pa Samuel Adebiyi’s family, had caused his lawyer to write to all concerned to warn them about the dangers of what they were about to laid their hands on. He also copied the Divisional Police Office, Esa Oke.
Chief Ayo Ogunleye, Chairman, Kajola Deverlopment Committee, told the meeting that ‘it was just towards the tail end of the year 2020 that the Board of Trustees was hinted that some Chinese visited Kajola and discovered gold deposits’.

He further disclosed that ‘since then, we kept an eagle’s eyes on the place until of recent when some dissidents were alleged to have collude with some foreigners to illegally attempt to start mine the gold deposits’.
According to him, ‘frantic efforts were made, coupled with series of meetings jointly held by Kajola Development Committee, with the Ila Community Chiefs and other dignitaries’.
He commended the conveners of the meeting, saying today’s meeting is timely as it will afford us the opportunity to come together to block those alleged were out to collude with the illegal miners.’
The Chairman was of the opinion that posterity will not forgive those self individuals who are out to waste the labour of our heroes past.
Chief Ogunleye called the Ila Community, both home and diaspora to wake up and jointly thwart the efforts of such selfish individuals and enemies to be fenced off from our midst.
Investigations by www.focusmagazineonline.com revealed that many communities in Ijesaland are in danger of environmental despolation due to the reckless activities of the Chinese and Hausa gold explorers.
A Chief in one of the communites told www.focusmagazineonline.com that ‘many of these miners are illegal miners. Nothing goes to the Treasury of the Federal or State government. But some powerful forces are said to be behind them’, he lamented.
From Ilesa West, Ilesa East, Atakumosa, now spiralling to Obokun local government areas, the entire geography of Ijesaland is under existentialism threat of both Chinese and Hausa gold miners.
Many farm lands in communities in and around Ilesa have been destroyed. This have also
A former Councillor in Obokun Local Government Council told www.focusmagazineonline.com that the situation Ilahun now found itself after the failled gold exploration is sad.
The community had given its land to the explorers and collected a token with the hope of hitting the big pay once gold mining began properly. The excercise was futive, as after the massive degredation of the land, no gold was found.

He warned the Kajola Community in Esa Oke to be wary of the sweet nothings, these explorers usually promise before entring the land. According to him, once they entered the land, they would become a total nuisance.
Meanwhile, Mr. Kunle Adebiyi said ‘some family members have colluded with some foreigners to destroy the age-long inheritance of our family by destroying our farmlandsin the name of looking for gold deposits’.
The U.S based man had in the letter written by his lawyer cautioned that ‘it is pertinent to let the whole family know the evil effect of gold mining on the family land. The whole land will be turned upside down, and after the mining, the land will become totally useless for cultivation and environmental degradation will set in’.

www.focusmagazineonline.com (C2022)