In November 2021, Azibaola Robert embarked on an expedition that had never been undertaken by anybody before him: exploration of the Niger Delta rainforests.
He assembled a team and they went on from the Otakeme rainforest in his home state of Bayelsa, in Ogbia Local Government Area.
With the grim reality that the Niger Delta rainforest is imperilled, as a result of adverse environmental practices, including oil spillages, deforestation (through illegal logging and firewood harvesting), hunting expeditions, which have almost rendered wildlife extinct, indiscriminate cutting of economic and medicinal trees, Azibaola and his team’s expedition into the Niger Delta’s forests sought to bring to the front burner of national discourse how man’s indiscriminate activities harm the region’s rainforest
His team sought to highlight the unfavourable effects of climate change and the need for preservation of rare species (plants and animals), creating alternative means of sustainable economy by way of tourism and conservation of the rainforest altogether.
The take-off point of that expedition was his community, Otakeme, in Ogbia LGA of Bayelsa State. They spent 14 days in the deep, rich forests, filming and highlighting the situation there.
After the expedition, the team produced a two-part documentary titled: “Azibaola Robert’s expedition into deep forests – the first of its kind in environmental documentary in Nigeria.”
The documentary aired on television between June 5 and June 12.
During the inaugural expedition, locals confirmed to Azibaola’s team depletion of rare animals, including the snake fish, pangolins, iguanas and other economic and medicinal trees in the Ogbia rainforest.
Eight months after, on Sunday, July 10, Azibaola and his expedition team returned to Otakeme to report their findings to the Ogbia people.
He chose to present the expedition report in the best tradition of his people: a bonfire night, with side offerings of sumptuous mounds of barbecued goat, chicken and plantain, supported with music by the local troupe at the Otakeme Village Square.
A bonfire is usually a large open-air fire used as part of a celebration.
Before that event, however, the heavens opened up and it rained heavily and intermittently drizzled all day. There were concerns the event would not hold because of the downpour. Concerned community leaders urged Azibaola to erect tents and canopies, to shield kinsmen from the elements, but Azibaola stood his ground. It was a community event rooted in history, held in the open, round a bonfire. Torrential rain or not, the event would go on in the best tradition of his people.
Although the rain poured ceaselessly, skilled communal hands ensured the bonfire burned all through the night, with its orange glow adding colour to an otherwise drab, cold night.
Before his kinsmen and the Ogbia Council of Chiefs, a drenched Azibaola presented his expedition report on behalf of the team.
There was no rehearsed speech. He didn’t need it. He was in the midst of his people. The homeboy spoke from the heart to his people in the language they understood, the Ogbia dialect. To ensure his friends from Abuja, Lagos and outside the community understood the message, he intermittently spoke in English.
“I’m doing this not because I don’t have a job to do. I don’t intend to see things going bad, going wrong, and not speak up. I schooled here. I’m a bonafide Ogbia man.
“The reason I came here is to follow-up on the 14-day expedition of last year. We’re the custodian of one of the richest rainforests in the world, which is scarce across the globe,” Azibaola said.
To buttress his point, he gave copious examples of rainforests across the globe, protected for their rich heritage and supported by government in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Russia, China, Indonesia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the United Kingdom.
He continued: “We have a rainforest here that is being pilfered. People are logging trees that would take 20 years to grow. Our ancestors left it for us, for more than a century, and someone from here goes into the forest to log wood and sell outside the community.
“Everything I knew as a child is gone. One person is going into the forest to cut them down, depleting the oxygen in our environment.”
At this point, Azibaola’s lone voice rang out loud and clear at the Otakeme square. It was a rallying cry to his Ogbia kinsmen. His voice bore the passion and pain occasioned by the depletion of the rainforest. And his people listened. He begged Ogbia, particularly the elders, to step in and stop the dangerous depletion of the community’s rainforest.
In the course of his verbal rendering of his report, devoid of any scripted speech, Azibaola urged his kinsmen to realise the danger ahead, if they refuse to take action immediately.
“In Ogbia tradition, as I knew it in those days, places were named after trees. It was used to give directions for medicinal trees and even geographical locations.
“There is need for action because government has failed us. I’m not campaigning against government but I’m campaigning against people who are depleting our rainforests.
“As a tradition, Ogbia people don’t eat foxes. Now, I go into the forest and there are no foxes there. Our forefathers knew that, if you eat them, they would go extinct. That was why they were never eaten then. In our culture, we don’t eat snails.
“When I was a child, I saw pangolins in our forests and, right now, you can’t get them again. It’s a contraband in the world right now. We need to do something about it.
“Everything is gone! All the chiefs need to know about what we have to do. If you don’t act now, your children may not have anything to inherit. The fishes are gone.
“We cannot allow that. We, as Ogbia people, were one of the greatest wrestling champions in Nigeria. We can have champions who can use their brains to change the tide now.
“This thing that is happening in Ogbia is not happening here alone. It’s all over the world and the Chinese, Americans and others are taking charge by stemming the impact of climate change and deforestation,” said Azibaola.
He also addressed his kinsmen on earth pollution and why it should be on the front burner in Otakeme.
“We’re part of the international community. We’re not an industrial nation, we’re not an industrial community. But we can tackle (the negative impact of) climate change now. We owe a duty to earth, to protect earth. We need to stop the mindless logging of wood. We need to protect the animals in our rainforest. We’ve already domesticated animals that we can eat as against going into the deep forests for bush meat; we need to leave deep forest animals in the forest. We shouldn’t let nature give us meat to eat. It means we’re killing wildlife and the inheritance given to us by our forefathers,” said Azibaola.
Not done yet, he reminded his kinsmen how, in times past, the Arigbere (an economic tree) was the community’s property such that women earned money from its fruits.
Focused, dogged and determined. That pretty summed up Azibaola’s resolve in shedding light on global warming, climate change, deforestation and letting his people know how they negatively impact the rainforests of the Niger Delta.
Azibaola told his people how their activities lead to the extinction of precious wildlife, how illegal logging of precious economic trees and other such actions rob a particular gender of income, among many other knotty issues in Otakeme, and, by extension, the Niger Delta.
He said: “At least 70 per cent of the Arigbere are gone in Otakeme. Women are the custodian of Arigbere but men are the ones who cut them down and reap the economic benefits. We, men, are denying them economic benefits and with our actions, we’ve impoverished them.”
In his response, chairman of the Otakeme Council of Chiefs, Chief Sunny Paul Omekwe, noted that, while some of the trees, including Adibiri (ogbono tree, also called bush mango in Ogbia), had been decimated, many still existed.
He said: “A N50,000 sanction is in place for anyone caught cutting them. Whoever is caught is handed over to the police for prosecution.”
Typical of bonfires, there was dancing round the central fire and Azibaola was the star of the bonfire night. In company with his family, comprising his wife, Stella, their children and relatives, Otakeme people turned out in large numbers and moved with his rhythm; they danced when he danced and listened when he spoke to them.
Azibaola, a lover of the environment, is the founder of Abuja-based Zeetin Engineering and chairman/managing director of Kakatar Group and, with the cooperation of the Ogbia community, hopes to develop strategies to conserve the environment.
He has lit the torch of conserving the Ogbia rainforest and, by extension, the Niger Delta rainforests, more than 400 kilometres in size. He has explained to them why it is important to bequeath that heritage to the future generation. It is now the community’s duty to take it up from there.