The Aheri community in Ilaje Local Council of Ondo State has rejected the proposed “Dangote Industrial City,” as well as other land acquisition schemes targeting its hinterland along the Alape Lagoon and the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway corridor.

The rejection was conveyed to representatives of the Ondo State Government and Dangote Industries Limited at a meeting convened by Oba Ilesanmi Ikuemonisan-Mafo, the Maporure of Aheri, at Zion-Pepe.

The meeting, which had in attendance traditional rulers, former government officials, youth leaders, and representatives of both the state government and Dangote, was convened to address the proposed investment in the Olokola Free Trade Zone (OKFTZ) and the purported Dangote Industrial City within the area.

In a communiqué signed by the Secretary of the Aheri Development Council, Ayeoba Asemudara, the community stated that the OKFTZ was initiated in 2007 under the administration of Dr Olusegun Agagu to cover 10,000 hectares of land spanning the coastal boundary corridor of Ondo and Ogun states, with each state expected to acquire and release 5,000 hectares.

The communiqué read in part: “The Aheri Kingdom of Ilaje welcomes the return of Dangote and associates with the industrial development agenda of the administration of Governor Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa within the OKFTZ along the Atlantic coast.”

“We note an inexplicable omission: the non-inclusion of representatives of the host communities in the technical committee set up by the Ondo State Government to collate records and liaise with Dangote and other private companies in the OKFTZ, which will only widen the current abysmal communication gap between the stakeholders.

“We note that government acts only through verifiable documentation; it is unacceptable that our land and forests are currently invaded by strangers based on a proposed government acquisition of land with no clear location or dimension and on the pretext of crop enumeration, data collection and environmental impact assessment of undisclosed projects.

“Ilaje, as the Yoruba tribe of the Niger Delta whose land is predominantly riverine, the large proportion of whose coastline is threatened by sea-incursion, is the only available land for meaningful development immediately north of the Atlantic shoreline, is in the Aheri kingdom and is currently being traversed and opened up by the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway.

“Having conceded such vast land along the coastal front to OKFTZ and Dangote, we reject unequivocally the so-called Dangote Industrial City or any other land-grabbing project seeking not only to displace our people from their ancestral homes but also to deprive them of the benefits of the modern environment brought about by the Lagos-Calabar Highway, which now links us to Lagos by less than a 30-minute journey.

“Ilaje-Aheri rejects any so-called investment that may make us, now and posterity, tenants on our land.” (The Guardian, but headline reworked)