Environment Watch

This week, Environment took an energy-sapping trip to Ikere Gorge Dam, 40 kilometres off Iseyin, to have an ‘I-witness’ experience of a colossal dam project that was about 98 per cent completed, but now wasting away as a result of an alleged Federal Government’s negligence.

In the beginning......
PERHAPS, former President  Olusegun Obasanjo had a good reason for, in the first instance, dreaming the construction of the now stalemated Ikere Gorge Dam situated about 40 kilometres from Iseyin in Oyo State.

It was said to have been discovered 60 years ago with the help of the settlers, when the then Western Nigeria Government was exploring the region in search of wealth creation opportunities. After the discovery of the natural gorge, the Western Nigeria Development Corporation started a mechanised farm with its cattle ranch of about 10,000 heads becoming the largest in West Africa as of 1956/1957.

The gorge dam, according to one of the guards in the site, was initially a dispersed settlement before the Europeans saw a natural spring water that could be harnessed to make life better.

As Head of State in 1978, Obasanjo further explored the natural endowment to boost the agricultural revolution he initiated, which he code-named Operation Feed the Nation (OFN).

However, it is now a case of the project being left in ruins, yet the Federal Government keeps mouthing its commitment to fix the nagging power problem!

Reasons for the project
Feelers have it that the initial major reason for the project was to boost food production in Oke Ogun area, nay the South-West through irrigation. It was thought that instead of the region depending on the North for tomatoes, pepper, groundnuts and other farm produce, the dam could  reverse the trend.

Fishing activities, potable water and tourism were part of the reasons the dam was also conceived. Fishing was to be anchored by the Ogun Oshun River Basin Authority (OORBDA), a parastatal of the Ministry of Water Resources which took effect immediately and was generating income until it began to be mismanaged. Today, uncertified individuals fish in the dam, while the multi-billion naira project had been practically abandoned.

The dam was also meant to supply 82 million cubic metres of water to neighbouring towns like Saki, Okeho as well as parts of Lagos and Ogun states.

The dam was also conceived to generate and add to the national grid, six megawatts of electricity as of then.

It is recalled that just last Wednesday at a workshop in Abuja, Minister of Power, Professor Barth Nnaji, declared that the nation needed about 135,000 megawatts of electricity to effectively power the  country, as against the current baseline of power generation  estimated at 3,600mw out of the 5,700mw available capacity.

He identified gas, hydro, coal, wind and energy as areas to exploit  in power generation. With the 260 and above megawatts of green electricity that experts believed can be generated from Ikere Gorge Dam, the total megawatts required for the nation would have been reduced if the hydropower project was fixed.

In Ghana, a similar dam is said to be boosting the country’s national grid with at least 1,300 megawatts.

State of the facilities
It  was observed that the about 40-kilometre road, which stretches from Iseyin to the dam site, has largely remained untarred, making it almost impassable for vehicles, except motorbikes. The poor access road is replete with red dust capable of adorning any sojourner with red dust all over.

On a motorbike, the trip takes not fewer than 50 minutes from Iseyin to the site of the dam. Farm produce like mangoes were seen rotting away due to the near inaccessible road.

In fact, by the time this reporter got to the site, he and his escort as well as the okada man were covered all over with red dust.

Only about two kilometres to the dam site had been tarred, as Mr Jare Ajao, a former project manager of the Ogun Oshun River Basin Development Authority (OORBDA) opined that the company handling the road project seemed to be spending a year to fix just a kilometre, expressing the fears that users of the road might eventually wait for long to see the deplorable road fixed.

At the Power House
On getting near the power house, the sound of a mighty gushing tide from the pipe connecting the dam to the Power House could be heard.

The Power House, Generator House and Control Room are located here. While the three buildings are still standing solid, the mammoth power house, which has one of its twin iron doors sagging, harbours the equipment for the generation of hydropower such as transformer, two turbine bases or fulcrum, their fans and two big pits meant to hold the two hydraulic turbine fulcrums which are lying massively on the floor and giving way to rust.

As of when Environment visited the site a forthnight ago, reptiles, birds, cobwebs and stagnant water had taken over the turbine pits.

Environment reliably gathered that a French company, Noel Engineering Ltd, supplied the now obsolete equipment for the hydro-electricity aspect of the project.

Directly behind the Power House is the pipe through which the tide released from the dam to power the turbine passes through.

The guide said that the dam has been opened at 25 per cent velocity since February in preparation for the rainy season. The force exerted by the rushing water could flush away a stationary lorry with less effort.

Overviewing the dam
The gorge dam is a beautiful site to behold anyday. It is said to have a volume of 565 million cubic metres, 47 kilometre square as of 1997, 35 mcm before the rains and 37 mcm during the rains. Standing tall almost near the meridian of the dam is a tower under which pipes are laid, linking the dam and the Power House..

The Aseyin of Iseyin, Oba Dr Abdul-Ganiyu Adeleke Salaudeen, Ologunsebi,  Ajinese I, in a chat with Environment, alluded, perhaps jocularly, that the height of the tower overshoots that of Cocoa House in Ibadan!

Although fishermen were not seen as of press time, materials used in doing their business were seen lying on the surface of the dam which beamed with great resplendence. Fish were seen popping up on the water surface to catch some sunlight. For tourists, the site and sights will be alluringly endless and memorable.

Roads in the dam site
The internal roads are tarred and solid. Driving round the entire lanscape of hills and valleys is pleasurable. It is a world on its own which existence is incredible.

At the staff quarters
Still on motorbike, the next port of call was the staff quarters. There, the road were left bare owing to what the guide called ‘security reasons.’  The buildings, which stretches on both right and left hands are a shadow of what they should be or what they used to be. There is a VIP lodge which is fast drooping for lack of maintenance.

Reasons for the state of the facility
Some varying reasons have been attributed to the present state of the facility. The Aseyin of Iseyin does not believe the facility has been abandoned, but neglected. He believes that “the dam is 98 per cent completed,” arguing that people of Iseyin community have been working tirelessly to see to the resuscitation of the dam.

“It is a wound that is not yet healed, it is still painful. It is painful that the Federal Government, having discovered and started the gorge dam, which is a natural endowment that can add great value to the economy of the nation, had to look the other way,” the veterinarian stated.

Asked what halted the completion of the project since all the equipment needed had been supplied and now lying obsolete in the dam, Oba Salaudeen said it was sheer negligence on the part of successive governments at the federal level.

From the stance of Dr Kolapo Olatunji Oluwasemire of the Department of Agronomy, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, the dam project has not only been abandoned, a lot of high level politics are playing out.

“A lot of politics are involved in the issue. The dam was meant to aid irrigation in that area. If that is what the present government can bring to fruition, it will be laudible. Obasanjo, who initiated the project as Head of State, came back as president, but did nothing to revisit it despite its enormous benefits.

According to him, “climate change is bringing a lot of savannah into the South-West. The place we used to call Rain Forest has been replaced with what we now call ‘Derived Savannah’ because of population growth and farming activities. It has implications on weather condition. So, if the dam is completed, it will help a lot in all-year-round crop production and food security,” the don noted.
Conclusion

Nigeria is a wasteful nation many are often wont to conclude. Else, how would one describe a situation whereby there is a massive dam that could generate more than 260 megawatts of electricity and yet the nation gropes in gross darkness? Can one even imagine how many graduates the projet will take off our streets if this project is completed?

Advocates of South-West economic integration should pursue this project with all the seriousness it deserves. The Oyo State government should, as a matter of urgency, resume its part of the bargain by tapping into the pipe-borne water project of the dam. Green hydro and wind power are the in-thing today if climate change must be checkmated.

This hydropower project that was near completion before its abandonement is essential to lift Nigeria up from its power quagmire.