Foremost conservation and tourism enclave in Edo State, Ogba Zoo and Nature Park is under threat of extinction over intensified encroachment and malicious destruction of natural tourism assets by land poachers in the state.
However, Ogba Zoo and Nature Park for years was neglected and abandoned until 2000 when the administration of former governor Lucky Igbinedion under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement ceded the management of the park to a private firm headed by one of Edo State’s renowned tourism practitioner, Andy Osa Ehanire, with a promise to fund the rejuvenation of the park, among others.
Since then Ehanire and his management team have succeeded in bringing back from the brink the death zoo to a tourist centre attracting the interest of nature lovers, conservationists, fun and leisure seekers who daily, especially during festive periods, throng the nature and leisure enclave for entertainment.
While the management is still battling the Edo State government to keep its own end of the bargain in respect of funding the zoo, investigation revealed that Ehanire is fighting perhaps the greatest battle of his life, as he is engaged with both poachers of the zoo’s natural resources and land grabbers, who have in the last couple of years decimated the zoo.
Going back into history, Ehanire disclosed the wide reach of the zoo: ‘‘The Ogba Zoo, which we manage, was designed and developed in the early seventies by then military administrator of former Bendel State, the late Brig. General Samuel Ogbemudia. Its concept was an extensive biological garden, with potential for resort development.
‘‘Soon after Ogbemudia’s regime, the zoo suffered a long era of decline and eventual collapse, spanning the late eighties and nineties. By the time of our private sector – led intervention in the year 2000, the zoo was already in comatose and was like ready to be written off the books.
‘‘The extent of its abandonment and decay, notwithstanding, Ogba Zoo experienced a painful rebirth through our rescue mission, which was purely self-financing, with no support from government.
‘‘But as challenging as reviving a moribund zoo was, there were other hidden challenges that can hardly be imagined in a sane society,’’ added Ehanire, who is also the secretary general of the Nigerian Association of Zoos and Parks (NAZAP), even as he narrated the several ordeals of the park.
‘‘It started as a minor incursion by community land grabbers into the zoo land until it was aided by official government instruments in the form of a gazette. All these years of battling the encroachment on the zoo, our private-sector led management was as good as left to solely tackle the growing menace unaided.
‘‘The land area encroached upon grew from about 10 per cent of the zoo land that was purportedly ceded by the gazette, to more than 60 per cent of the entire zoo.
It was like a horror movie seeing bulldozers levelling priceless flora in this pristine conservation heritage that had been a classic urban forest rarely found anywhere in the world.’’
According to Ehanire, “memos were written to the state government and other concerned groups in the state, such as the state House of Assembly and the palace of the Oba of Benin.” When no respite came from all those moves, he opted for court action where judgment was delivered in favour of the zoo but again, that didn’t deter the land poachers from plundering the land of the zoo, thereby destroying its ecosystem, flora and fauna resources.
Not relenting in his bid to rescue what is left of the plundered zoo, Ehanire spoke of efforts at drawing the attention of Governor Godwin Obaseki to the plight of the zoo.
‘‘We have sent letters to governor Obaseki on the extant matters and maintained contacts with the solicitor general and the secretary to the state government on the issue,’’ he said.
Furthermore, Ehanire disclosed that: ‘‘We equally sought and have been promised audience with the governor. We are, therefore, hopeful that the new governor will take a decisive approach to save the zoo from the grips of brigandage and looters. We are also anxious as to when specific government interventions would commence to save the zoo, before all that needs to be saved are totally destroyed.”