Ojuwo-Ochekwu: A Kogi community sitting on oil wells

It is 1952. It is mid-morning, and the mild sun spread its wings to enable its ray pierce through the wide fronds of ubiquitous palm trees over thatched huts of Ojuwo-Ochekwu. As peasant farmers double their efforts on the field to cultivate crops before the intensity of the sun obstruct their comfort, a strange sound […]

It is 1952. It is mid-morning, and the mild sun spread its wings to enable its ray pierce through the wide fronds of ubiquitous palm trees over thatched huts of Ojuwo-Ochekwu. As peasant farmers double their efforts on the field to cultivate crops before the intensity of the sun obstruct their comfort, a strange sound is heard, initially from the distance. The farmers take a look in the direction of the sound. They are directed to the sky. Hovering over tall trees is a helicopter. It is a strange sight. Only birds, the size of eagles, fly over their sky in such a friendly manner. Here, a bird of iron is flying and descending calmly. Then, it disappears from their view. Few hours later, three white men, trekking through a footpath, arrive in Ojuwo-Ochekwu, making way through Mabolo River, and into a thick forest across cyclical array of hills, where it is believed, evil spirits have their abode. What did the long noses of these white creatures perceive in the forest? What?
It is not long before the suspense fades. The white men perceive crude oil onshore and offshore River Maboro. In Ojuwo-Ochekwu the river that runs into this territory from Ankpa has its tributary. For as long as the ancestors of the people of Ojuwu-Ochekwu have lived in this land, the people had suspected that the forest hid treasures, which at an unknown future, would be discovered. Here is the future – 1952.
“I was a teenager in those days,” the Madaki of Etukwo Ukoh in Ojuwo-Ochekwu, Chief Matthew Apeh, told our reporter, while sitting on an old, rickety wooden three-settee chair, made attractive by a neat piece of plastic carpet   that covered it. Looking past the summit of the tall and blossoming mango trees which were made proud by numerous fruits, Chief Apeh spoke about the excitement of those days with nostalgia. “We didn’t know what it was when we saw the helicopter in the air.  It would come, flying lowly, then it would disappear. But in a matter of weeks, the white men built an airstrip – which is still there today – and began to land there.”
The white men were from Shell British Petroleum (Shell BP) in Lagos. Chief Apeh, recollecting the events of those days said, “There was a beehive of activities in all the villages around here. Workers came from all over Igala land, including Idah, the headquarters of the Igala Native Authority. We were all engaged, to the point that instead of going to our farms, we worked on the project. There was a lot to do, like clearing the bush to create the path to the location of the crude oil, digging holes, fetching water, and all sorts of menial jobs that paid us handsomely.”
Because of the influx of people Ojuwo-Ochekwu became a centre of attraction to the point that prominent individuals, including the then Attah of Igala, visited the site. A long stretch of road was constructed from Okpo, the current headquarters of Olamaboro Local Government Area, to Ojuwo Ochekwu. The 12-kilometre two-lane road is now erosion-prone, bumpy and hardly motorable, but it remains the only access road to Ojuwo-Ochekwu in the last 62 years.
“The road was wider than this,” 56-year-old Prince Matthew Odoh, an educationist and community leader, told our reporter. “In the early 1950s, they came in helicopters. That was when they sensed that there was crude oil in this environment. When they became certain, the white men now came with bulldozers and cleared the broad pathway to Ojuwo-Ochekwu in order to transport their equipment to the location. It took one year to construct this road. It took another to bring in their equipment. In the third year, work began in earnest, with digging and drilling oil from the ground. They dug as deep as 100 feet to be able to reach the crude oil. Work was intensive on this site for between six and seven months, until a kind of political conflict set in. The white men were caught in the middle of it, and departed from here to Oluiiri in present-day Bayelsa State to work on the oil-find.”
Chief Apeh told our reporter that before Shell BP workers went to Ojuwo-Ochekwu to work and drill oil, the residents in the villages were in awe of the array of 10 mountains around where crude oil was found. “From the village here, we would hear unusual drumming, some kinds of sound emanating from the mountains. We got used to the mystery and warned our people against straying into those mountains, as it was considered as a point of no return, like the end of the world. In the evening, the area around the mountains would be as hot as oven. When the weather is cold in this village, the mountainous region would become hot. And early in the morning we would find smoke evaporating from the mountains into the sky, turning the whole atmosphere into white thick cloud.”
The journey from the village to the location of the oil well, even in April this year, did not belie what the village chief talked about. As it was some 62 years ago, so it was in April. Some three kilometres to the foot of the mountain, our reporter lost his comfort to the hot weather, causing him to sweat profusely. Against the thick bush that enveloped Ojuwo-Ochekwu and other villages, what was obtainable about two kilometres to the mountain were low grassland, short trees, and shrubs that gave the impression that one was moving into a savannah region. But the greenery, the freshness of the trees and the wet stones from recent  rainfall proved otherwise.
“In those days, this place was a no-go area for villagers,” Prince Odoh explained. “Before the discovery of oil here it was a forest where hunters caught pythons, lions, hippopotamus, leopard, crocodiles and other wild animals from the river. People came from different parts of Igala land to hunt for animals, but since the exploratory work done by the white man, those animals have disappeared. It is suspected that the heavy machines used by the explorers and the sound they produced during their activities scared the animals away and they relocated to other quiet and save zones.”
After trekking for about an hour, this reporter and the excited youths of the community arrived at one of the oil wells. It’s a beacon of about eight square metres. With the stamp of Shell BP clearly printed on it, the slab has a bold mark as PSN/60 and MP/67. Around this slab are holes created by grenades used to break the ground to enable Shell BP engineers penetrate the well. This beacon is one of four, two of them onshore and two others offshore, our reporter learnt. From the location of this slab to the mountain is estimate to be about three kilometres, while from the mountain to Mabolo River where other wells are traced is another three kilometres. The range is very wide, such that locating them by trekking through the blurred pathway could be a tedious adventure.
Until the conflict between Ibaji community in Kogi State and Anambra community over oil well being explored by Orient Oil Company revived the prospects of oil deposits in Kogi State to global attention, not many people thought there was any oil well in Ojuwo-Ochekwu.
“Initially, when people in the oil industry talked about oil deposits in Nigeria, reference was made to Ibaji,” Prince Odoh said. “Ojuwo-Ochekwu was never recognised. The oil deposit here was thought to be in Anambra State. I had to raise my voice to bring this to the attention of the authorities that there is oil deposit here.”
This community leader had to shout loudly before he was even given attention by the Kogi State government. According to Prince Odoh, he wrote to Lokoja, informing the authorities of  abandoned oil wells, asking government to set up a committee to explore and complete the project. For two years he was ignored.
“Since October 2013, I was always going to Lokoja and sleeping there, impressing it on them that we have oil wealth in my village,” Prince Odoh told this reporter. “After intense search, we discovered that there is a map in the Ministry of Commerce in Lokoja, which identified this village as having oil deposit. It was inherited from the old Benue State, which has a record of the oil deposit in Ojuwo-Ochekwu. We took it to the Government House to prove what I had been talking about. We’ve linked up with Shell BP in Lagos, which confirmed that its engineers had done some work here, but there was no conclusive information on why they abruptly stopped work here. We want to continue from where Shell BP engineers stopped.”
Already, the Kogi State government has sent out a fact-finding team to Ojuwo-Ochekwu. According to a letter dated February 20, 2014 and signed by Daikwo John, Director, Investment Promotion of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in Lokoja, the following discoveries have been made and steps are being taken:
(i) The first exploration was carried out in 1952 and drilling started in 1955 by the Shell BP Company;
(ii) Beacons with different inscriptions such as PSN/60, MP/67, ND/43 etc were mounted at different locations and at the descending order from a hill to Maboro river;
(iii) One of the employed community members who is now the senior Gago gave brief history on the stoppage, that it was politically motivated during the late Attah of Igala, Ameh Oboni, and the company had no alternative than to move out.
By this letter, the ministry authorised Prince Matthew Odoh to collaborate with the authorities in Kogi State to look for investors for “a fresh geological investigation, exploration and investment in the oil wells.”
The youths of this community have been upbeat about this renewed interest in the oil wells. They are looking forward to a great future of mass employment and wealth, a period when Ojuwo-Ochekwu would be transformed for  farming to a huge industrial community, because, according to Prince Odoh, some persons from the United States have indicated interest in the oil wells. The prayers of the people could be answered only if there is oil in commercial quantity under the 10 mountains and offshore in the great Maboro River.