30/05/2011 (The Nation) - Nine villages in Ovia North East Local Goverrment Area of Edo State have demanded N1bn compensation from the Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research (NIFOR).

Their demand was coming 72 years after they provided the land on which NIFOR estates and research station was set up.

The communities are Uwan, Evboneka, Ugbogiobo, Iguoyenmwen, Ekodobo, Okunuvbe, Abuwenre, Isiukhukhu and Ekowe and they gave out 4289.1 acres of their ancestral land to the then colonial government on the advice of the Oba of Benin.

Chairman of the NIFOR Host Communities Development Association, Mr. Monday Ekhorutomwen said the N1bn compensation being demanded was for NIFOR to appreciate their gesture since the management of the oil research institute has shown little or no concern for their plight.

Mr. Ekhorutomwen said NIFOR’s original mandate was to investigate problems and matters relating to oil palm and its products but that it has broadened it to include coconut palm, raffia palm and date palms of huge economic importance to the local communities.

"Our fathers toiled day and night, mapped out progressive strategies, cleared the bushes and fell the trees before buildings were erected," he said. "Regrettably their untiring effort was never rewarded by the institute with many of their descendants today ending up as destitute in the fatherland.

Ekhorutomwen said the local communities deserve a reciprocal attention from the insitute, as is the practice all over the world.

He said that the host communities have been without roads, water, health centres or electricity.

He added that they are poorer and can no longer afford the high cost of renting farmlands in faraway government forests or buying costly farming implements to farm on the lands.

He also said the communities do not get the alloted quota of products such as palm oil, palm wine, soap materials, fruits from NIFOR, to buy and sell, in keeping with their arrangement.