The feud took a dangerous turn when Oyama was accused of mobilizing youths to block access to the company’s operation site, leading to a confrontation with police.
By CrossRiverWatch Admin
Between 2001 and 2023, 138 million hectares (Mha) of global tree cover were lost to fires, while 350 Mha were cleared due to other causes, according to Global Forest Watch. In 2023 alone, fire-related losses peaked at 11.9 Mha. In Cross River State, Nigeria, one of West Africa’s richest biodiversity zones, this growing deforestation trend is exacerbated by the activities of Yellow River Manufacturing Nigeria Limited, a Chinese-owned wood processing firm operated by its nationals in Okuni Community, Ikom Local Government Area of the state.
Despite several petitions, protests, and warnings about the company’s operations, it took years for the Cross River State House of Assembly’s Special Committee on Illegal Wood Processing to declare the company’s activities illegal. However, even after the declaration, the firm has continued large-scale timber harvesting with little to no official enforcement, sparking community unrest and division.
The firm’s main target is the rich wood deposit in the community and its environs. Host community members told CrossRiverWatch. The members who are against the operation said the firm’s ownership and control have caused division and unrest, setting community members to be at logger-head.
Investigation reveals that the firm has the full backing of community leaders and other influential individuals in the LGA. One of those influential individuals fingered in the illegal act is Barrister Ichire Okim, who, some community members told CrossRiverWatch, operates as a midwife between the community and the firm. He serves as the community’s Lawyer for Okuni or Olulumo communities.
Residents told CrossRiverWatch that the presence of Yellow River Manufacturing has inflamed long-standing grievances within Okuni. At the heart of the conflict lies the issue of land ownership, revenue-sharing, and control over decision-making. Although an agreement was reportedly reached for the lease of community land to the company for N18 million, members of the Okpantum Alobi Egborogo family, who claim ancestral ownership of the land, say they received only three hundred thousand (300,000) Naira from the first installment. The family insists it is entitled to either one-third of the lease proceeds or the entire sum.
“The family should be given their due recognition as the primary owners of the land. The Family is entitled to one-third of the proceeds from the company lease, as contained in all the past agreements. That should stand,” said Rev. Joseph Obinya Osim, head of the family.
But community leaders argue otherwise. “That is not the first time the community has leased land for wood processing, as it was the case when Mike’s Wood Processing Company came, the same family was compensated. But when Yellow River came, they demanded fresh compensation and tried to disrupt the agreement when the community refused,” the Okuni Council of Chiefs told CrossRiverWatch.
A Lawyer’s Role In The Crisis
At the center of the controversy is Barrister Ichire Okim, a native of Okuni and the community’s legal representative. He is accused by critics and community members, including environmental activist Odey Oyama, of conspiring with foreign interests to exploit communal land. When quizzed by CrossRiverWatch, Okim refuted the allegations and traced the genesis of the crisis to long-standing disputes involving past leases and internal community politics.
“After studying the communities, I noticed that the community rented out the land to that firm for 99 years, renewable every five years, at the sum of N25,000. “I therefore quarried the agreement, engaged the company (Mike’s Wood processing industry); eventually, I increased the rent from N25,000 to N300,000. Eventually, the community went gouged with excitement.
“Unfortunately, enemies began to gang up because the community was praising my efforts. That was the first time that our people started going to court to claim that the land doesn’t belong to the community, but that it is a family land; that the proceeds from the land ought to have gone to the family and not the community, just to destroy my contribution.”
He said, “the original agreement documents between the community and the company, which were handed over to me as a lawyer, nothing is referencing ‘family land’. The agreement shows that the land belongs to the community. To make matters worse for the family, the first Chief, who originated the agreement between the firm and family, was from the Okpantum Alobi Egborogo family. And he signed the agreement as the Clan head of Effi, he did so alongside the Chiefs council, elders, and the development union of the Effi community. He didn’t sign that agreement as family head, family land, but as community head,” Ichire said.
According to Okim, his involvement with Yellow River Manufacturing followed a similar legal pathway of leasing the land for 30 years at N18 million, stating that the company initially wanted to purchase it outright, but the community declined.
He claimed that conflicts began when the Egborogo family felt sidelined and were allegedly influenced by Odey Oyama to reject the lease.
From Legal Dispute To Personal Vendetta
The feud between Oyama and Okim is deeply personal, with both men accusing each other of betrayal and misinformation. Oyama, an environmental activist and Executive Director of the Rainforest Resource and Development Center (RRDC), has published multiple documents alleging Okim’s complicity in illegal land deals.
According to Okim, Oyama’s refusal to reconcile with community elders and his public demands for apologies have further polarized the community. “We even tried traditional reconciliation, but he refused and insisted on going to court.”
The feud took a dangerous turn when Oyama was accused of mobilizing youths to block access to the company’s operation site, leading to a confrontation with police.
Okim said the Area Commander of Ikom caught them erecting barricades at night, abusive and confrontational, which later led to Oyama’s arrest.
While Oyama declined to speak directly with CrossRiverWatch, he referred this reporter to a collection of memos, letters, and articles he authored, which document his version of the events. In them, he accuses not only Okim but also several village chiefs of working against the interests of the Okuni community.
Repeated attempts to speak with a spokesperson from Yellow River Manufacturing were unsuccessful. One of the company’s representatives, identified as Sonia, said they are not interested in offering any explanations.
However, in an interview with Leadership Newspaper in 2024, the Chairman of the Cross River State Forestry Commission, Dr. George O’ben-Etchi, dismissed Oyama’s claims that Chinese nationals had illegally set up operations in the Effi community forest.
He noted that the Forestry Commission conducted a fact-finding visit and found no evidence supporting the claim of an illegal forest invasion.
The Okuni conflict is a cautionary tale of what can happen when foreign business interests intersect with unresolved internal land disputes, weak enforcement, and fractured leadership. As illegal logging and mining operations continue in most communities in the state, trust between stakeholders remains fractured, and the once-unified communities remain divided by land, leadership, and legacy.
This report was produced with support from Civic Media Lab Grassroot News Project (GNP 3.0).