By Missang Oyama
Today, Olulumo Nation in Ikom Local Government Area of Cross River State is standing at a tragic crossroads, its lifeline—the rainforest bequeathed by its forebears is under siege by forces that value illicit profit over preservation. A foreign entity, Yellow River Company, has descended upon our ancestral lands like a swarm of locusts, engaging in reckless deforestation. This is a company without proper documentation or due process. From the far reaches of China, they have come, backed not by legitimacy of the people but by the unquenchable greed of local collaborators—men who should be stewards of our land but have instead become its unconscionable betrayers.
The devastation is unfolding before our very eyes. Both towering trees and amateurs with the propensity to stand for centuries to come as guardians of our ecosystem, are being felled with reckless abandon and without remorse. Our once-thriving rainforest, home to rare flora and fauna, now lies in ruin, its soil stripped bare, its rivers clouded with the sediment of destruction. What was once a sanctuary for our people—providing food, natural medicine, and shelter to some endemic species—is now a scarred habitat, raped of its riches and left gasping for breath because some people must line their pockets.
At the heart of this obscene tragedy is a cabal of local enablers—men with red caps whose only allegiance in this obscene excapade is personal benefits. These are men who sit on thrones as rulers and self-proclaimed custodians of tradition who, instead of protecting our heritage, have sold it off to foreign exploiters for personal gain. They stand shamelessly as intermediaries in this grand betrayal, orchestrating the looting of our land while carrying on as the rulers of our people.
But perhaps the most shocking element of this treachery is the role played by a supposed servant in the temple of justice—a man who should be a defender of the people but has chosen to wield his jurisprudential expertise as a weapon against his own people. Instead of challenging the blatant illegality of Yellow River Company’s invasion, he has become the chief enforcer of this mindless enterprise, ensuring that all opposition is silenced. His robes, meant to symbolize justice, are now stained with the filth of complicity. Of course, the operation of the Yellow River Company in Olulumo Eburutu Kingdom is at his behest. Undoubtedly, he is the progenitor of the rape of our common patrimony.
The consequences of this unchecked deforestation will be dire. Our ecosystem is collapsing. Our climate is shifting. The very existence of future generations is being gambled away for quick profits and cheap personal gains. And while the forest is being carted away in container ships bound for Southeast Asia, China to be precise, Olulumo Nation is left with nothing but barren land and the echoes of a lost paradise.
The remaining vestige of the world’s tropical rainforest in Sub-Saharan Africa is being captured by men from far-flung Asia in league with a man who goes by an ecclesiastical title. Truly, judgement will start in the house of the lord.
But the people of Olulumo will not remain silent. The battle to reclaim our rainforest must be taken more seriously. The perpetrators of this heinous crime against our people will be held accountable and we shall demand reparation from this daylight robbery of our natural heritage. The land does not belong to these profiteers and bidders; it belongs to all of us and generations yet unborn. If we do not act now, we risk losing Olulumo Nation itself—not just the trees, but the very soul of our nation because a man is acting on the strength of a document that must vitiated on all fronts.
Missang Oyama
For the Indegenous People of Olulumo Nation.
