He first observed the previously colourless river turning brown in July 2019 while catnapping at the riverbank after fishing for the day. Prior to his discovery, Razaq Femi made at least N5,000 in daily returns from fishing along the coast of the river. But by November 2019, when the colour change had come to stay, he noticed the fish starting to dwindle, and his income took a tumble.

Femi says he thought it was a natural occurrence.

By April 2020 when most parts of the world were on lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the water, according to Femi, had completely turned brown. At that point, the 37-year-old said his fellow fishermen began to ask questions and were ultimately able to trace the contamination to the mining activities in Osogbo, the capital of Osun state.

The fishermen, over 500 of them, were not sure of what was being mined. What was clear to them was their progressively dwindling income, and after it nosedived to N200 in 2022, many abandoned Asejire in search of other rivers to make ends meet. But not Femi; he still visits occasionally in the hope that things might change while his wife’s income keeps the family running.

“My wife has been the one feeding me and the children. The income is now so low,” he said, evidently rattled but resigned to fate.

“I can spend hours here without catching a single fish a whole day. Before your arrival, I was just trying to see if the net had caught some fish. Nothing is inside. We need help over this river.”

Since the early 1950s, gold mining operations have been a permanent fixture in Osun state, although the majority of the activity has been illegal. The quest for gold continuously attracts commercial and artisanal miners, resulting in an influx of mining workers and labourers, predominantly from northern Nigeria.

And as the gold particles are sieved away from the ore, the impact is felt by the Asejire dam which supplies drinking water to some parts of Oyo and communities surrounding the Osun river.

FOLLOWING THE WATER
Built in the late 1960s, the Asejire dam sits on the Osun river, about 30 kilometres east of Ibadan, Oyo state. The river borders Osun and Oyo.

Using Google Earth’s satellite imagery, and with the aid of a drone, TheCable was able to trace the source of the pollution to Ilesa communities (otherwise called Ijesha) in Osun.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/investigation-how-illegal-mining-fuels-poverty-river-pollution-sacred-grove-desecration-in-osun/