By Samad Uthman

While Reynolds Construction Company (RCC) boasts of adequate measures to prevent accidents, pollution and other adverse effects of its rock blasting activities, Dataphyte’s investigation exposes how unhealthy practices by the company and government’s sheer regulatory failure endanger the lives in Ogunmakin, a border community in Ogun State, Southwest Nigeria.

On a mildly sunny afternoon in December 2020, Comfort Ajegunle, 78, was taking a nap in one of the rooms in her six-bedroom apartment before an explosive sound jolted her awake. Although not strange, it still caught her unawares. She had forgotten that it was one of those days and had missed the public announcement from Reynold Construction Company (RCC) notifying members of the Orile Ogunmakin community of the commencement of blasting operations for the day.

Since 2013 when it began operations, RCC has been blasting rocks to source granite three times weekly — Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in Onituruku village for the construction of the Lagos-Ibadan express road. While Onituruku is in Oyo State, it shares borders with Orile Ogunmakin which is in Ogun state. The two communities are delineated by the Omi river.

Asleep or awake, sick or dying, in rain or blazing heat; citizens of Orile Ogunmakin must scramble out of their homes and head towards the community hall built by RCC once the siren indicating the commencement of blasting activities is heard.

For those three days, the construction company would send an official escort to the community and police officers with a siren-blaring van, calling on the people of Orile Ogunmakin to leave their houses for a newly built community hall.

The hall, although just as cracked as the houses, serves as a refuge from flying rocks that usually emerge from the nearby blasting site.

Had Comfort remembered, she would have prepared ahead of time by taking cover at the community hall but it was already too late for her to head for the hall. Blasting had already begun and she came fully awake when a big rock particle hurtled through her roof, landing just whiskers from her head on the bed where she lay.

The widow scampered to safety but according to her, she developed heavy cluster-headaches after the incident. She would later spend her savings at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Abeokuta in Ogun state, seeking medical attention for eye problems she developed as a result of the cluster headache.

“It felt as if my eyes would fall from their sockets,” she said while narrating how it happened.Comfort told Dataphyte that some days after the incident, the safety managers of RCC came to her house for assessment but that was the last time she saw the officials.

Beyond the costs of her eye care, the septuagenarian has also continued to spend on plastering over the cracks on the walls in her home. The house was all her late husband left for her and she will do everything to protect the inheritance.

“The buildings keep on cracking from inside. There is a part of this house that will soon fall,” said Comfort in a tone that barely bellies her anguish.

The compound houses three clustered apartments, each with at least 6 six rooms which she rented out to tenants.

One of the tenants in Comfort’s home is her son, Joseph Adegunle. Joseph is married and has a son. The trio have hearing and speaking disabilities. They can’t hear the warning siren of the RCC officials whenever they want to blast. They are always at the mercy of kind co-tenants to communicate with hand gestures, adopting a crude form of sign language to get them to safety.

Yemisi, Joseph’s wife, expressed her worry and displeasure at RCCs activities.

“We don’t have rest of mind here. As you can see, this house belongs to my father in law; everything is in ruins. Whenever we are cooking and they want to blast, they would tell us to step down our pots from the fire and leave for the hall. It’s a very serious case. We are in grief”

‘Displaced from her sleeping position’

The tale of gross discomfort and horror is not peculiar to Comfort and her family alone.

Mary Ayinde, wife of a Pastor in the same community was sleeping on a mat inside their church having kept vigil for four days non-stop. She was violently woken up by heavy vibrations having been displaced from her sleeping position. Apparently shocked, Mary said her heart began beating faster.

When she got out of the house, it was an apocalyptic scene, the sky was covered with dust and it would take some minutes before it settled.

The heart palpitations persisted until she was told that she had developed high blood pressure in a private hospital in Ibadan, Oyo state. The doctor placed her on drugs and she is unable to sleep if she fails to take them.

It has been three years since Mary’s High Blood Pressure diagnosis and she continues to suffer. The prescribed drugs she takes, no one sells them in Ogunmakin, hence, she has to travel to Ibadan, 40 kilometres away, to get them.“I have been placed on drugs that if I don’t use the drug I won’t be able to sleep. I have been using drugs every day for the past three years. If I fail to use the drug for one day I won’t be able to sleep. I have been on it till now” an emotional Mary told Dataphyte.

Residents turn part-time occupants — even in their own homes

Mathew Adegunle, a smallholder farmer, had just returned from his farm one evening in July 2018. He was resting in his house awaiting dinner when it began to rain.

At that exact moment, RCC started blowing the siren, notifying that they wanted to blast rocks in their quarry site behind Mathew’s house. Mathew and his family abandoned the comfort of their home and the food being prepared to join other members of the community, heading for the old express road that leads to Ibadan from Ogunmakin.

All under the rain.

Mathew is a son of the land, born and raised in the community. He had all his education up to the tertiary level while living in the same village. If he’s not on the farm, he runs a small milling shop in front of his house. Now, the blasting poses a bigger threat to living and he may resort to leaving the community.

“Before RCC came into this community, we enjoyed our lives better. We were not informed of their arrival. Upon their arrival, they started blasting. The stones do destroy our houses. I am tired and I am considering selling my assets here. And leaving. It’s too much,” the father of four lamented.

Timothy Olajide, just two weeks before Dataphyte’s visit to the community, was christening his newborn daughter in a nearby worship building. The rain was falling heavily that day. They were deep into merrymaking when the heavy blast sound brought an abrupt end to the ceremony.

“We were all inside that church for the naming, and they blasted the rock again. We were all scared. There was nowhere to escape”, Timothy narrated.

Blasting for Development at the People’s Expense

RCC is a subsidiary of a Swiss company, SBI International Holdings AG (SBI). SBI is Shikun & Binui Group’s global infrastructure arm for the implementation of civil engineering, development and construction projects.

Lagos- Ibadan expressway was commissioned in August 1978 during the Military era, under the administration of Major-General Olusegun Obasanjo. The 127.6-kilometre-long expressway connecting Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State and Lagos is the major route to the northern, southern and eastern parts of Nigeria.

The expressway is the busiest interstate route in Nigeria, it handles more than 250,000 vehicles daily and is one of the largest road networks in Africa.

On July 5, 2013, former President Goodluck Jonathan flagged off the reconstruction and expansion works on the expressway. At the occasion, he announced the award of the contract to Julius Berger Nigeria Plc and RCC for repairs on Section 1 (Lagos-Sagamu Interchange) and section II (Sagamu Interchange-Ibadan) respectively. The contract was awarded for N167 billion.

To meet up with the Federal Government’s mandate, RCC resorted to blasting a big rock in Onituruku which is in Oyo State. The blasting site is adjacent to Orile Ogunmakin.

Google Earth, an open-source app using satellite imagery, aided Dataphyte’s investigation in ascertaining the distance between the blasting site and residences. From the last house in the Orile Ogunmakin community to the blasting site, there are 230.08 meters, which is 0.23kilometers. The blasting site is a mere estimated 755 feet away from houses in Orile Ogunmakin.

According to the National Environmental (quarrying and blasting operations) Regulations, 2013, “a person shall not locate a quarry or engage in blasting within three kilometres (3km) of any existing residential, commercial or industrial area”.

Blasting is generally adopted for rock excavation; the level of the resulting ground vibration and the structural response depends on the explosive type and weight, delay time, blasting technology, soil properties, the distance between the structure and the blasting centre, susceptibility ratings of the adjacent and remote structures, and the age and type of the structure.

Ezzeldin Yazeed, a professor in the Department of Construction Engineering at The American University in Cairo, noted in a paper that subsurface construction blasting generates ground vibration which may have a damaging effect on residential buildings.

He explained that “when a charge is detonated in a solid medium (like a rock), a family of waves is generated. These waves generate different particle movements and travel at different wave velocities. The resulting ground-borne vibrations may have an effect on residential buildings ranging from disturbing the occupants to causing severe threshold “cosmetic” or structural damage”.

While Dataphyte was unable to determine the exact level of vibration intensity in Orile Ogunmakin, the construction engineering professor documented that “problems may occur as a result of large amplitude (low frequency) vibrations, repeated occurrence of smaller amplitude vibrations, or from differential settlement induced by soil particles rearrangement”.

Jamiu Shurakat, the Baale of Orile Ogunmakin, said the community has over 70 occupied houses in total with many uncompleted ones. Dataphyte sampled over 40 houses in the community and realised that none of it is safe from wall crack(s). While some are just cosmetic, many are structural cracks to the extent that house owners resorted to possible support systems to save the walls from falling.

Aside from walls falling and cracking based on the heavy vibrations due to close proximity, Dataphyte also captured images of fly rocks on roofing sheets and its impact on glass windows. Many houses in the community with glass windows have been smashed. Many have had theirs fixed countless times or removed totally.

Flyrock, or wild flyrock, is a rock that is ejected from the blast site in a controlled explosion in mining operations. The term refers in particular to rock that flies beyond the blast site, causing injuries to people and damage to property. This is considered a significant issue in mining; between 1994 and 2005, 32 miners were injured by flyrock. Dataphyte reviewed that globally, the majority of flyrock incidents go unreported or unnoticed, and in most jurisdictions, incidents of flyrock that do not leave the blast area or that do not cause injury or death within or outside the blast area are not officially reported.

The Ontario Ministry of the Environment fined Austin Powder Ltd. $130,000 in May 2014 for its blasting activities on July 20 and 23, 2009, that caused fly rock accidents. In the first incident, a small rock struck a worker at a neighbouring business on the arm. In the second incident, rocks were observed flying well beyond the control area. A scale house located 230 metres from the blast was struck by a number of rocks. Two vehicles held at a controlled stop along nearby Young Road on the edge of the quarry property located about 300 metres from the blast were also struck by rock resulting in extensive damage.

No authority, environmental or otherwise has yet spoken up for the people of Orile Ogunmakin.As earlier stated, from Orile-Ogunmakin to the RCC blasting site there is a 230.08 meters distance.

Falling walls and hurtling Stones

According to claims and evidence captured in the community, there is no house in the community without at least one threshold crack. The allegations by the members of the community that the heavy vibrations are the cause of this, check out as Dataphyte confirmed that the proximity of the blasting site to residences in Orile Ogunmakin is close enough to cause such cracks.

Even the big hall, which took RCC, a construction company, many years to complete, is filled with cracks similar to many of the houses in the community. ‘Orile Ogunmakin in great environmental & health danger’ – seismologistFalade Ayomiposi, a geoscientist and seismologist at the Earthquake and Space Weather Laboratory, Department of Geology, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, on viewing the satellite imagery detailing the distance between Orile Ogunmakin and the RCC blasting site, explained that “The explosives mostly utilized in mining activities are either Ammonium Nitrate Fuel Oil (ANFO) or Dynamite.

These explosives when being utilized generate airwave vibration (in the form of noise) and soil vibration. Both vibrations disturb the building. The airwave vibration affects the walls and roof buildings, while soil vibration enters through the basement causing temporary movement of the buildings’ foundation. This leads to displacement of properties put on walls and shelves”

He said that the cracks seen on the houses in Orile Ogunmakin may be structural/cosmetic cracks resulting from the inferior materials used for the construction and consistent vibration above the recommended United State Bureau of Mines (USBM) threshold (0.5 IPS) could result in the permanent displacement of building foundation resulting into structural cracks on the walls of these buildings.

Falade also pointed out that noise from blasting, which could have exceeded the recommended threshold of 114 dB, could affect human health and also cause structural damage to buildings in Orile Ogunmakin.

He noted that vibrations felt in this community would have not been more intense if they were 3 km away from the quarry site.

‘Dust in the cloud’

Many of the community members interviewed testified that blasting of the rocks comes with clouds of dust.

The main occupation of Ogunmakin people is farming and yam flour processing and they related that they see the dust on the yam flakes and the leaves of plants in their nearby farms. The health implications of such dust is even higher, however, while the residents know that dust is not good for their health, they don’t know the extent of the impact such environmental pollution can have on their short and long term health outcomes.

A research, published in August 2020, conducted by Maysaa Nemer, Rita Giacaman and Abdullatif Husseini which investigated the health effects of dust exposure on people living close to quarry sites compared with those who live far from the quarry sites in Palestine, revealed that environmental exposure to dust from quarrying activities could pose health dangers to the population living nearby.

The results highlight the importance of developing and strictly enforcing rules and regulations in Palestine to protect population health.

In the research which is titled Lung ‘Function and Respiratory Health of Populations Living Close to Quarry Sites in Palestine: A Cross-Sectional Study’, a cross-sectional comparative study was conducted among 79 exposed participants, who lived less than 500m away from the quarry sites, and 79 control participants who lived more than 500m away.

All participants answered a questionnaire on dust exposure at home and health effects, as well as performed a lung function test in which both reported and measured health effects were investigated.

People who live in close proximity to the quarry sites reported exposure to dust at home (98%), land destruction (85%), plant leaves covered with dust (97%), and an inability to grow crops (92%).

The research also recorded that the exposed group reported significantly higher eye and nasal allergy (22% vs. 3%), eye soreness (18% vs. 1%), and dryness (17% vs. 3%), chest tightness (9% vs. 1%), and chronic cough (11% vs. 0%) compared to the control group.

Lung function parameters were significantly lower among the exposed group compared to the control group; mean forced vital capacity (FVC) was 3.35 L vs. 3.71 L (p = 0.001), mean forced expiratory volume in the first second (FEV1) was 2.78 L vs. 3.17 L (p = 0.001).

Higher levels of airway restriction were found among the exposed group. Among the exposed group, lung function parameters worsened with the increasing closeness of home to the quarry site.

The coming of RCC and how it Reneged on Promises to Residents

Available information gathered by Dataphyte from different sources in Orile Ogunmakin shows that RCC entered the community in 2012 but started blasting in 2013. Although RCC claims it operates on Oyo state’s land, its rock blasting site borders and is closest to Orile Ogunmakin.

According to the Baale of Orile Ogunmakin, Jamiu Shukurat, before the commencement of the blasting operation in the community, the RCC management came to have a meeting with the whole community where the king was also present. During the meeting, RCC promised to provide social amenities for the community and signed a Memorandum of Understanding with them.

“They came to have a meeting with all of us in the community to inform us that they saw a big mountain at Oke-Ibadan and made some agreements with us. They agreed to dig a borehole for us, give scholarships to our children, and build a hall for us because when they are blasting, the rock particles find their way into our community” the Baale explained.

However, only the just completed hall has been delivered, out of all the promises made. The Baale noted that “as I am talking to you, none of us is employed in RCC. Every other thing they promised to do for us, we can not get hold of any among them”. Jamiu Shurakat is the Baale of Orile Ogunmakin. He said RCC reneged on all its agreed promises to the community.

In 2017, the Olu of Ogunmakin, Oba Olugbenga Sodiya told Vanguard newspaper that the reason why the community did not make any trouble with RCC at the initial stage was that they were told that the rock blasting was not for commercial purposes but for the construction of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

The king added that “In 2014, all the families in our community held a meeting with RCC and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that they should compensate people that own houses close to where RCC is working. Based on the MoU, each compound got N100,000 compensation and they promised to construct a town hall complex and to provide potable water”.

On September 24, 2021, in a phone conversation with the Olu of Ogunmakin, the king further explained to Dataphyte that a total of N5 million was presented to the people of the community by RCC after a series of meetings and disagreements. He added that then, only 35 houses were built in Orile Ogunmakin and all got N100,000 each amounting to N3.5million in total and this “gift” was tagged ‘empowerment’ and could not be called ‘compensation’.“

RCC agreed to pay the community a sum of Five million Naira, build a hall and promised to do other things. We asked them to put it in writing. They did that. For record purposes, each house collected N100,00. RCC tagged it as empowerment. Along the line, they brought generators, motorcycles, and others”.

The King said the community will be renewing the MoU with RCC at 5-year intervals, which means as at the time of filing this report, another MoU is binding the community to RCC operations. This is the blasting site RCC is working from.

“We were not Considered in the EIA”

Oba Olugbenga Sodiya, the Olu of Ogunmakin also exposed to Dataphyte in the phone conversation that when they first noticed an overburden across the Omi river (the river serving as boundary landmark between Oyo and Ogun state), he informed the then chairman of Obafemi Owode local government, Nurudeen Diya Olu.

The king added that he also notified the state Ministry in charge of mining and they (the Orile Ogunmakin residents) protested to the blasting site. Oba Sodiya told Dataphyte that it was through the series of engagements with RCC that he got to see, in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) documents tendered to him, that Ogunmakin was never considered in their assessments despite being less than 1km from the blasting site to their community.

“We later found out that in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) document that Orile Ogunmakin as a community was not considered at all. But we didn’t know. The people of the community said we should allow them to see that the blasting is for Lagos-Ibadan express road construction. I showed my grievances and explained that we would suffer the injury if we don’t take action now. Then, most of the people are old people. Right now as I am talking to you, some of them are late”

The court tussle

Solomon Olabode, a retired priest with the Anglican communion, decided not to just “leave God to judge RCC”. On the 13th of August 2018, he took RCC before Ogun State High court on behalf of the community and himself. In a writ of summons made available to Dataphyte with suit number AB/169/18, Olabode accused RCC of carrying out quarry activities which have resulted in the destruction of his properties and a storey-building.

The suit seeks an order of perpetual injunction restraining the RCC from furthering its activities at the blasting site. The suit also avers that the RCC “in carrying out the quarry activities did not put in place any technical and economic measure that mitigated the adverse environmental effects of the quarry activities”

The suit also noted that the quarry activities in the community have continued to result in the destruction of property/houses, adverse effects on health, and contamination of the environment. He also added that the blasting has made them suffer severe material and financial loss.

Earlier on, May 23, 2017, Olabode’s lawyer, Prince Edoziem of Ahngleighkan & Associates had written a letter to the RCC demanding the replacement or creation of lost resources and payment of N10 billion compensation. On October 10, 2017, when the RCC failed to respond to Olabode’s query 5 months after the letter was sent through his lawyer, a pre-action letter to Defendant requesting for an amicable settlement of N100 Million or seek redress in a court of law was sent.

While speaking to Dataphyte in his apartment in Orile Ogunmakin, he said that he was forced to take RCC to court after all his efforts to get the company to take responsibility for their actions proved abortive. But “we have been in court now since 2017 because at various stages, they refused to come to court until we finally broke the line to ensure we brought them to court”

“Now, they have also involved the court in technicalities which I believe the house might have even collapsed before I get a judgement. All these are adding to my pressure as an old man to see what to do”.

Now, according to Olabode, the RCC wants the case to be heard in Ibadan (Oyo State) upon which the blasting site is situated, but Olabode has prayed the court the case be heard in Abeokuta (Ogun state) because its citizens bare the adverse effect of RCC’s activities. The court ruled in his favour.

“We have appeared in the court in 2017 at three month intervals because once we attend, they will adjourn, but definitely we have been attending once in three months and this is the third year. 2017, 2018, 2019, if not because of Covid-19 (in 2020) that is the only time we did not attend in every 3 months”.

Prince Edoziem, Olabode’s lawyer, speaking with Dataphyte on phone explained that RCC has taken the case to the Court of Appeal and they await the court to call for sitting.

No cadastral unit registered to RCC in Oyo state

Dataphyte scoured through the valid mining title database of the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development and could not find any mining cadastral unit (CU) in Oyo State assigned to RCC, where it is claiming its mining site is. They however have 4 such licences in Ogun State.

According to the available record, the RCC has 7 CUs with valid quarry lease permits in Edo state which is expected to expire on August 20, 2022, with license identity 1165. The valid quarry lease permit with license identity 19072 in Ijebu East in Ogun state is expected to expire on August 24, 2024.

Ringing Silence from RCC

On the 3rd of September 2021, Dataphyte sent a Freedom of Information (FOI) letter to the RCC’s Managing Director’s office in its headquarters in Jabi, Abuja. The letter was sent around 1:22 pm to [email protected] and a hard copy of the letter was also delivered to the office and was received and acknowledged by a CB Charles.

A call was put through to the office of the Managing Director around 10am on 20th of September 2021, and the same CB Charles responded that “the document (the FOI letter) has been forwarded to the legal department” before he ended the call.

https://www.dataphyte.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/FOI-Request-to-RCC-1-converted.pdf

Again, 27 days after the initial letter was sent, a call was placed to the office of the managing director around 12:35 pm. This time, CB Charles laughed and said with mirth “I will remind them Oga”.

As at the filing of this report, the RCC has yet to respond, violating its own pledge of placing high premium on matters relating to Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) despite Dataphyte’s exposition on the issue of concern as contained in the letter.

‘RCC Violating People’s right’ – Human Rights lawyer

He said “the recurrent rock-blasting by the construction company is not only hazardous; it equally constitutes a gross violation of the people’s environmental rights. For a country governed by rule of law and democratic ideals, this kind of environmental injustice is unacceptable and intolerable.Business organizations are obligated by law to respect human rights at all times, inclusive of the environmental rights of host communities”.Festus Ogun further said that the Environmental rights of host communities are sacrosanct and sacred.

I daresay that this flagrant environmental rights violation is not supported by any living law in Nigeria. Honestly, I am compelled to believe the exploration activities are blatantly illegal. If indeed all the legal requirements relating to licenses, permits and community development agreements are complied with, it is unlikely that the present tragedy will arise”.

This investigation was originally published by Dataphyte