…Protests On Ogoni Streets
The people of Okwale Community, Ogoni in Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State Wednesday, December 10, 2025 took to the streets of Ogoni in protest against the alleged attempt by SIAT, a foreign agricultural firm to forcefully take over their farm lands.
The protesting community people comprising men, women and youths carried placards with varying inscriptions, asking the management of SIAT and their collaborators to leave their land which according to them is their only source of livelihood, stressing that Okwale is a farming community and depriving them of their only natural resource is to force the community into extinction.
Speaking on behalf of the protesters, the spokesman of the community, Chief Stanley Nwine said they were earlier approached by one Mr. Michael Ojims who identified himself as the facilitator of the return of SIAT to the site formerly occupied and vacated by the defunct Risonpalm.
According to Chief Nwine, he came in company of one Malaysian but were rebuffed by the Okwale people but were shocked to witness an embarrassing and intimidating return of Mr. Ojims and his cohorts trying to forcefully enter the lands over the weekend
The lands in question according to the spokesman, are individual family lands and not community land.
Narrating the genesis of the whole episode, Chief Stanley Nwine said in 1989 during the military era, some portion of the land was forcefully and illegally acquired by the military without due consultation and documentation for the Rivers State Palm Plantation (RISONPALM) when most of them were not yet born and others small.
According to him, their forefathers conceded only 200 hectares of the land to Risonpalm but rather than limit itself to the 200 hectares, they unlawfully took 315 hectares and went ahead to survey another 300 hectares which also led to a protest in 2004 but to no avail.
“The 315 hectares being presently occupied by the company have not attracted any benefits to the community, no water, no roads, etc,” he noted.
When Risonpalm finally collapsed, they sold the site to SIAT who had before now confined itself to the earlier illegally acquired 315 hectares of land until the present move to extend to the unlawfully surveyed 300 additional hectares which the Okwale people have vehemently opposed, he further remarked.
Corroborating Chief Nwine’s account, Hon. Faamah Bariledum from Buagon village and Chairman of National Association of Peace and Conflict Resolution, Nigeria, said the claim by SIAT that they had the authorization of the State governor, Sir Siminalayi Fubara to resume palm plantation activities in the land is a ruse and a ploy to acquire their land and subject their people to starvation and abject poverty.
According to him, the state government is not aware of the surreptitious move to criminally acquire their land and cannot do so without consulting their chiefs, leaders and elders according to the law.
He said Okwale Community consisting of , Buagon, Bekpaa, Buale and Koro villages up to date has no good roads, no electricity, no hospitals and no markets and was grossly neglected even when Risompalm was in operation.
“The community has not mandated any individual or group to negotiate with any company on their behalf and collectively reject any attempt aimed at balkanizing the community”.
Rather than develop the area he said, the presence of Risonpalm attracted to the community criminals, vandals and security operatives who randomly arrested and detained their people for voicing out against the injustice and oppression by the company.
The people are therefore demanding inter alia, due consultation with the people, and Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on partnership and shareholding with the people as no proper arrangement or documentation was earlier entered into with their forebears, that the community has no more lands to give and cannot give more than the 200 hectares of the 315 hectares unlawfully acquired by the company, insist that all documentary processes concerning the site must be finalized before any resumption of activities . Failure to meet all the demands they said, the land already occupied will be revoked. The people regretted that due to neglect and lack of necessary amenities in their area, their people are suffering and merely surviving from meager earnings from their farm and must not be further punished unduly.
