No establishment of wood factory by Chinese in Cross River community -O’ben-Etchi insist

By Ene Ene, Calabar

The chairman of Cross River State Forestry Commission, George O’ben-Etchi, has described as lies the purported establishment of a wood factory in Effi community forest, Okuni village, In Ikom local government area of Cross River state by the Chinese national.

Recall that the executive director, Rainforest Resources Development Centre (RRDC), Odey Oyama had alleged that some Chinese nationals doing business at Okuni community established a wood processing industry at Effi community rainforest, an allegation that warranted the state forestry commission chairman and his team to visit the community.

Responding, the forestry commission chairman, O’ben-Etchisaid that he and his team decided to.pay a visit to the community to confirm, if Oyama ‘s allegations in his petitions can be substantiated.

“I got a petition from Odey Oyama, an indigene of Effi community, Okuni village, alleging that Chinese nationals built a factory in Effi forest.

“The petitioner alleged that the Chinese men were doing a lot of destruction to the forest. And that they were cutting small trees, not allowing them to grow.

“I decided to make a visit to the community, met with the chiefs because there were allegations also that the chiefs were the ones who brought them”.

“Luckily as I got to the community, I met with the chiefs and thier community lawyer to ask them what exactly was going on”.

“We were brought to this premises Carvent plant that used to operate in those days, only to discover that the factory was not in the forest as alleged by the petitioner, rather the factory is located right in the heart of Effi community in Okuni village..

“The Chinese were actually not in the forest. They were not even involved in logging activity of any form. This i can say authoritatively.

“I don’t know if there is something else that warranted the write up from our brother, except there is there something else that is going on behind the scene which I have no knowledge of.

“I was shocked and began to think that probably we were not in the right factory, because of the way and manner in which the issue was trending on social media platform that there was massive trees cutting on-going in Effi community forest by Chinese people.

“I actually came to ascertained what is on ground. My team and I came here with the hope of seeing a Chinese factory in the forest, unfortunately we saw nothing like a wood factory in the forest.

“What we saw is small factory located at former Asuquo’s plant even in the heart of the community, eventhough the factory is yet to be registered with us.

“They have actually written to us asking for license to enable them build the factory to operate at full capacity. Interestingly we found out the factory is not even in the forest.

“The wood you see here, are pieces of wood that are brought by farmers while trying to clear their farms. I really don’t think that it is wise to discourage investors who are coming to impact on the lives of our people”. The chairman stressed.

In a remark, youth president of Effi community, Okuni local government area, Otegha Edim, averred that Oyama’s allegation against the Chinese nationals is not true stressing that the Chinese men only visited their land to do business.

“Our community chiefs only lease out the land to them for few years nobody sold the land to the Chinese. In the past, our people used to use these small pieces of wood for firewood, fortunately these days; the small pieces of woods are sold to the Chinese people”.

The Chinese told the community people that “instead of using these small pieces of wood for fire wood why not sell it to us so that we can use it for production of plywood and at the end of the day they created jobs for the youths”.

”The woods you see here in this factory are soft woods”. The youth president maintained.

Effort to get Oyama’s reaction on the issue failed as his telephone line did not go through and text messages sent to his WhatsApp were never replied at the time of filing this report.