It stands unstable, poached, polluted, abused and disfigured. It sits in the limbo. A defied nature’s masterpiece and greenery wonder of the jet-age! It is randomly plundered by man’s extravagance, simply because a government that supposedly holds it in public-trust is indifferent, and encourages its violators. This is against its original laudable goal of continuity in rendering a social obligation to the people.
Yes, it’s going down fast, like some public monuments of its kind that had been steadily neglected, destroyed and lost in Edo State. The twist is where the same destroyers will grieve at last; that the priceless monument, their pride, had been ruined, and so wish to have it back. Like a child who ate his cake, but wants to keep it!
These are factual expressions prompted by the ill-fate befalling the Ogba Zoo and Nature Park! The rare ‘Mother Nature’ is located at Ogba, a onetime quiet suburb on the Oko-Ogba fringes of Airport Road, Benin City, the Edo State capital. Presently, the conservation enclave has been encircled and imperiled by the miseries of urban physical expansion.
Also called Benin-Ogba Zoo and Nature Park (BENZOPA), the global monument is supposedly supervised by the state government, but only in name. It had been practically abandoned to its perils, whereas Everal Services Limited, its franchise holder/manager, had virtually turned it around, under government’s neglect.
The Edo public is heaving a sigh of relief that Everal, that came to rescue the nature enclave from plundering and extinction, about three decades ago, is dragging the state government through the State High Court in Benin City, only for the purposes of according the centre its continuity, to the benefit of the public, once and for all.
Everal Limited is enforcing an arbitral award, which the state failed to honour since November 3, 2016. Additional grounds on which the company sued is a breach of the lease agreement, and failure to protect the park.
But its last hearing, which was adjourned to October 26, 2026 suffered a delay, because the lawyers representing the state government, was absent from court.
In 1965, BENZOPA was carved out from the former Ogba Forest Reserve, being a natural forest that was replanted with tree crops by successive Oba (monarchs) of the Benin Kingdom, through ‘Ugbo Oba’, community block farming system. The system was managed by the Obas, across and beyond the old kingdom, as resumed by Oba Ewuare I, the Great (1441 – 1473).
BENZOPA’s fortunes had been recklessly decreased, particularly in the immediate-past era of Mr. Godwin Obaseki, as its governor, where its original designated land and water areas of 750 acres (300 hectares), had been reduced to a trifling size. The parkland is further threatened by land scramblers, where patches of the remaining land area, because it is exposed, old and wearing out, cry for attention and regeneration. There is also the need for constant desilting of the Ogba rivulet that nurtures the land, alongside urban sewage discharge.
No thanks to the ceaseless defacing, and encroachment on BENZOPA’s facilities and land, whilst government plays the fiddle. When an owner disregards his cloth, the onlookers would turn it into a rag. Government’s indifference and backing had encouraged BENZOPA’s adjoining local communities and some top politicians of the two leading political parties, to grab the ‘reserved’ and ‘protected’ designate land.
The Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), a subsidiary of the country’s major oil firm, Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, is also an implicated violator of BENZOPA. Regardless agitations, NPDC has refused to enforce Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study, and a Corporate Social Responsible (CSR) obligation to the centre. NPDC had established its palatial headquarters on a designate BENZOPA’s land. Edo State government had ignored such loud public calls to bring NPDC, and other violators to justice.
As if flying the kite by some well-placed land-grabbing politicians, a commissioner of the Boys Scout Movement, that was privileged to be given a contiguous space, originally owned by the BENZOPA, had had the temerity to call for the relocation of a public monument from its natural location. It is like the ants on a kola nut tree chasing away its owner and planter.
Where there are hardly green acres and natural recreation centres left within the city space, it is unwise for land grabbers to move for relocation of a global natural monument, with its rare old growth tree of large girths that are about a thousand years old! The question is; where will government acquire such old growth trees and other landforms, in the Benin City’s peripherals that are now treeless?
BENZOPA is classified by conservation experts as “a valuable biodiversity hotspot”, “vibrant environmental conservation research/awareness center”, and one which diverse and priceless nature forms are catalogued in notable global biodiversity directories. It is also globally referred to the “last vestiges (leftovers) of a Guinea Lowland Rainforest” that is situated and ‘protected’ within an urban setting in Africa – perhaps the last in the world!
The conservation enclave ‘par excellence’ is a mosaic (assortment) of old-growth trees, dense undergrowth and creeping floras, mixed with artificial trees (arboretums) that were nurtured since centuries. Most of its trees and other floras are of economic and medicinal values.
During its foundation, it was the rave of the country, as it was dotted with striking animals in enclosures, and some others in a semi-free wandering range of the designated land; for sight-seeing, safari and conservation research.
Today, birdwatchers and ornithologists find their way to the nature park, to monitor seasonal forest and aquatic birds, said to migrate long ways from the Nordic countries of Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, with other European countries. BEZOPA’s land is either a transit or destination.
It as well serves as a “picnic and ecotourism hob” for a cross-generation of nature lovers, particularly children and students, who convivially throng to it, from countrywide, for entertainment, all year round.
Yet, Edo State government gladly portrays it to the world, in its directory as “a foremost resort/ecotourism centre”, and one of the few leading country’s zoo and nature park, that ministers to a dwindling ‘zoo culture’ in the country.
But for the late Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemeudia, a household name in the country, a two-time governor of the defunct Midwest and Bendel states (now Edo and Delta states), it would be a disservice to his creative ingenuity and indelible memory, seeing the needless violation and final loss of his ‘brainchild’.
Before his passing to external glory, about a decade ago, the revered innovator had publicly mourned the violations visited on BENZOPA. He intermittently praised Sir Andrew Ehanire and his Everal Company for coming to the aid of the centre, which he said must be ‘protected for posterity’, from vandals and land-grabbers.
Yet, humanity will continually give Ogbemudia unforgettable accolades for establishing it. BENZOPA was famous (still is) throughout African continental, as a rare Nigerian flagship nature-project. Former President Jomo Kenyatta, a safari and nature-loving leaders of Kenya always cherished visiting BENZOPA, ‘the Pride of Africa’.
Kenyatta had compared notes with a Col. Ogbemudia, then military administrator of the state, where both leaders exchanged wildlife species and technical conservation knowhow.
It is only for land-grabbing politicians and anti-nature elite, who crave for the relocation and extinction of a rich heritage that is a global mascot to the Benin Kingdom, its long generations of Obas, and the Edo people.
Whereas, it is unheard of that land grabbers and some politicians call for the relocation of the London Zoo (the Regent’s Park), that was established in 1828, nor the Shonbrunn Zoo in Vienna, Austria, the oldest world zoo, that was set up in 1752.
