24 years after 'the drums of death: A new air in Koko

By Emma Amaize

Flashback

WHEN, in 1987, an Italian  allegedly shipped in 1,079,000 metric tonnes of toxic waste, which he claimed were residual chemicals and raw materials, to Koko in Warri North Local Government Area of Delta State, he said it was for a proposed fertilizer manufacturing company in Nigeria, but, as the people found out later, the items were killer materials.

Instead of ushering prosperity, the ‘drums of death’, stored in the compound of the late Mr. Sunday Nana, brought illnesses, including stomach upset, headache, failing sight and death to the people. There was outrage in the country and the then military government of General Ibrahim Babangida (rt) evacuated the products, reportedly promising, among other development incentives, to upgrade the community’s hospital to a teaching hospital or, in the alternative, make it a teaching hospital to UNIBEN.

A laboratory was also to be established to monitor the health of the people of the area, as a means of monitoring the long or short-term effects, if any, of the toxic wastes on the people and the environment.

These plans came up because government decided to dump an earlier plan to relocate the people of Koko  elsewhere, as a means of saving them from the likely effects of the toxic waste. At the time, the people had threatened to resist the move to relocate them outside their ancestral land.

Renewal of hope For 24 years after the incident, the Federal Government seemed to have abandoned Koko to its plight, but the Federal Government, under President Goodluck Jonathan, appears  ready to change the Koko story. On Monday, July 25, Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan led to the community some foreign investors, approved by the Federal Government, to inspect the sites for establishment of a $10 billion petrochemical plant and $6 billion fertilizer plant.

Festive mood The team of investors from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Zenel Oil) and (Nagarjuma Company) India, along with representatives of the NNPC, Chevron and Sahara Energy (an indigenous) firm arrived the port town on a rainy day, but Koko was in a festive mood as chiefs, women and youths rolled out the red carpet for the  visitors. On arrival, the team moved  to the Koko Secondary School, from where they were flown in three helicopters to have aerial view of the Koko Export Free Zone, which is the location of the multi-billion dollars investments. The approval of Koko as an export free zone was granted by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua.

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