The beauty and strength of Ijero-Ekiti has been ruptured. It took place on February 11, 2026. A devastating whirlwind has brought down the grandeur of this historic town. As I write, thousands are gnashing their teeth, children and women are downcast, homes are mourning and the trees and flowers are down in tears.
Ijero is or was,a beauty to behold. A city buried in a vast valley, surrounded by lurch green mountains. The mountains are undulating, presenting nature in its most captivating form.
In years past, my father, then as the clergyman in charge of Anglican Church at Ilogbo-Ekiti, used to visit this city on Sundays. I was too infant to be his companion, but my seniors would follow him coming back with tales of a city built by God himself: the hills, the descending snaky roads, the homes perched on the top of cliffs, the evergreen trees, the singing birds, rainbow-like rays at eventide and the beauty of flowers that adorned the distant trees, probably designed by God himself.
The storm visited for only less than one hour. It came at twilight, when homes were setting up the dinner table and farmers, if any, were returning from their huts in far away distances. No one died, but souls perished, souls of generations in the past and that of the future, born and unborn generations. Nature fought Ijero with its might and the city fell, not able to put up any resistance. Houses were blown off, churches and mosques fell, the wind took shrines from their groves and scattered then into pieces. Property and goods destroyed are said to be worth over NI billion. No one lost lives but humanity died in the city.
For long, Ijero, like many communities in Ekiti State has been taunting nature. We have hunted nature. We have raped nature. We have slapped and kicked nature. We kill the trees and flowers, we murder birds and animals whose lifecycles are linked to sustenance of the ecosytem.
Nature is fighting back.
We all saw it coming, but we did nothing. As far back as 1993, I visited from The Guardian to write a piece on Ijero. I did for The Guardian Newspapers. The foreign miners were beginning to settle down. They came for gemstones, gold, laterite and their soulmates. During that visit, I met the traditional rulers.
I told them a calamity lay ahead. They should stop the foreign diggers. But the military high command of the time was involved. Gradually, they fell the trees, dig the ground, opened up the womb of nature, burnt the forest, fall down everything nature planted in the search for money. There was no environmental impact or Community Impact Assessment.
The last time I visited, Ijero has become an old, sexually abused and assaulted woman, waiting to die. Trees that served as wind breakers were no more. The lurch evergreen trees have been destroyed, some of those ancient trees had existed for over 300 years. They tilled and scourged the soil. The city opened her laps to gully erosion and the devastating anger of hurricane.
This is not a duty for the Governor of the State, neither is it the role of the central government. It is simply the failure of community leadership in its raw form.
There are different levels of governments: The Federal, the State, the Local Governments. But a thousand years before formal governments, there was an indigenous government that ran the affairs of the commonwealth. That authority is both physical and spiritual. It involves the people and their traditional institutions that engaged nature and had dialogue with the wind, the sky,the stars, the moon, the rain and the sunshine. That timeless harmony has been rubbished by money, by greed and by avarice.
Ijero has been a beauty to behold.
My sympathy goes to the wonderful people of Ijero and to Ekiti people all over the world. I stand with you in this moment of grief. The sad story is that it can and will happen again.
What is to be done
Every home should launch tree planting campaign. Every resident in Ijero or in any part of Ekiti should plant one tree this month. The mining activities in Ijero Local Government should be immediately suspended for a regulate process that will involve Environmental and Community Impact Assessment. It is the Federal and State Governments that can effectively drive this initiative. But on mining matters, the Federal Government holds the ace. The Federal Government should suspend mining in Ekiti for few months to address pending environmental disasters. On the long term, States should be in charge of mining. The devastation of Ijero began under the tyranical military hegemony, sustained since 1999. We need to put an end to this menace.
Ijero is located in the Local Government of the current Minister for Solid Minerals. We read about him in the newspapers all the time with high-flying policies and programes, but on the ground, there is nothing. His homestead is devastated by illegal mining and the graveyards of our forefathers are being excavated by foreign elements for monetary gains as the miners plant the very seed that will destroy NATURE, with our sleepless mother. Mining operations account for close to 5 percent of global carbon emissions through deforestation and land destruction. Mining also impair food security while putting the health of mankind at a peril.
Ijero Development Association should rise up to its responsibilities, so also is our great King, Ajero of Ijero Ekiti to shield the second wrath of nature. Ijero should urgently set up Community Environmental Fund. I recommend this for all cities and towns in Ekiti and in all Yoruba territories.
If we fail to act now, our cities, our homes, our treasures given to us by God, will, in one day, vanish.
A stitch in time saves nine.
