By Anietie Akpan
Women in Obung community in Akamkpa Local Government Area (LGA) of Cross River State have decried the continuous neglect of their community by mining companies operating in their area.
The women who bared their minds at a one day Community Dialogue programme under, “Climate Justice Education for Women in Mining Communities: Promoting Awareness and Action on Environmental Sustainability Project”
at Obung town hall on Tuesday, November 4, put together by Uyo Iban Amplifier Initiative (UIAI) with support from Global GreenGrants Fund (GGF), called for an urgent change of attitude.
The women who were supported by their men like the Obung Youth Leader, Festus Ndifo, lamented years of neglect, marginalization, deprivation, poverty and others from years of mining by multinationals like Sterling Global in Obung community.
In view of this, over 50 women from Obung gathered to brainstorm on their challenges and the way forward through a five man panel discussion anchored by an Environmental Activist, Ekemini Simon under the topic, “Promoting Community Accountability and Sustainable Environmental Practices in Mining Communities”.
Before the commencement of the dialogue, the Coordinator of UIAI, Okoho Ene set the tone by thanking the women for “joining us as we discuss Inclusive Environmental Governance, a key step towards ensuring that everyone’s voice counts in decisions affecting our environment and livelihoods”.
She said that the dialogue aimed, “to strengthen community participation, especially among women, youth, and marginalized groups, in promoting transparency, accountability, and collaboration in environmental protection”.
Accordingly, Ene charged the panelists and the women in session to collectively “explore practical ways to make governance more inclusive, fair, and sustainable because true environmental justice begins when everyone has a seat at the table”.
The dialogue was very interactive and revealing, highlighting how the community has suffered absolute injustice with no good roads, water, electricity, no good yields from the farms and the streams are polluted, window glasses of their homes broken as a result of excessive mining activities.
It was also observed that in a day, the Obung community witnesses between 1,500 to 2,000 heavy duty trucks conveying crushed rocks out of the community thus impacting negatively on the already deplorable road.
Health challenges arising from excessive dust pollution from the mining environment also came to the fore.
One of the participants from Obung, Mrs.. Immaculata Clement said, “we don’t have any power here, no benefit”.
She said women and the entire community are suffering from the activities of the company mining in Obung and “apart from the dust that have affected our streams, health and farms, when they blast our glass windows will scatter. The company should do something. The company should reduce the power of blast”.
Lucy Ndifon Eta, another participant from Obung, said, “we women have benefitted from this dialogue and we are very happy. They have taken us to a very long way.
They gave us knowledge that we did not know. They made us to understand that. Women and men should be joining one meeting. To know, to explain our feelings on things we know that is not good for us”.
She said, “the men don’t take us along. They have come and enlightened us that we should be joining every meeting with men so that we tell them what we don’t like. We tell them what we are suffering, tell them what our daughters and children are suffering”.
Eta stated that even with this company (Sterling Global) that we have here, we don’t have good roads. We are suffering from the dust and we don’t have good water because as they are blasting those stones, our streams are blocked and dirty. We don’t have good stream. But from this dialogue we now know what we can do”.
Panelists at the Community dialogue at Obung.
Laurita John on her part said, “in this Obung community we have been made to believe that women do not have a voice or a say in decisions making but today our eyes are open.
“We will fight in a peaceful and respectful manner for justice. We suffer a lot. Our children fall sick anyhow and we don’t know where it is coming from. But from this dialogue we are going to take our concerns to the men council and then the company operating here benefiting from our God given natural resources”.
The Obung Youth Leader, Festus Ndifon, who was at the dialogue to support the women pledged the readiness of the youth to carry the women along emphasizing that, “what affects the eyes affects the nose”.
He commended UIAI for the dialogue saying, “it is an opener and as you can see the water here is bad and I think it was only that one (pointing to a borehole nearby) that is functioning
and I don’t think people do drink it because it’s close to this pool here. When they dug the borehole here, they didn’t go deep so most of this water they don’t drink and the good streams are far”.
Ndifon lamented that one of the best streams that we had then, was called Ebanga and all these companies at the edge of that stream have polluted it with their activities as everything that they do there go to the water and the water is not good for drinking anymore, you can only just go there and bath and wash your clothes”.
Consequent upon this, he said, “most of the time people do have coughs or maybe cholera so those are the things we are passing through and we are calling for government intervention, if only they can help us because as you can see it is very difficult for us”.
The Director, Environmental Quality Control, Elder Akpa Agbor who was one of the panelists, pointed out that today, lots of things have been done that affect the environment negatively.
Agbor said the dusts or byproducts of the various companies’ mining activities affect the people and their streams and the farms, and he advised the women to always dialogue with all concerned or even write to the government and the company involved”.
“All the mining companies do an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) before starting business and they are expected to follow it religiously”, he added.
He said, the laws are there guiding the operations of the mining companies and they should keep to it for sustainable development.
The Executive Director of Partnership for Social and Environmental Development Initiative (P4SEDI), Tatu Okang, who was also on the panel, called on the women to stand up for their rights despite challenges.
“Women are the worse hit”, Okang said noting that, “climate justice is about fairness.The mining companies should operate with fairness and take responsibility for their actions”, Okang said noting that Obung women should take charge and get involved in activities affecting them.
Simon who moderated the dialogue, said the time has come for the women to rise for justice peacefully through dialogue as defenders of their environment.
He said stories of environmental pollution and deprivation dominate the Obung community hence “everyone deserves to drink clean water but it is not so today”.
At the end of the dialogue, the women resolved to speak with one voice and work with the “Women Eco-Defenders” group that was inaugurated earlier to champion the issues of women seeking justice, promoting community accountability and sustainable environmental practices in their community.
