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Ojoo gemstones market: Where Gambians, Guineans, Senegalese… make fortunes

Sunday, 13 March 2011 03:08

Gemstone_marketActivities of illegal immigrants from neighbouring African counties, who besiege Nigeria in thousands in search of gemstones and other economic potentialities, have occupied the front burner in the recent time. While some blame Nigerian government and its weak security agencies for not checkmating the influx, others submit that the country’s ratification of  some ECOWAS conventions and instruments is culpable, reports EMMANUEL ADENIYI.
LOCATED very close to many motor parks where commuters board vehicles to Lagos and northern part of the country, Ojoo, a community in Ibadan in Akinyele Local Government Area of Oyo State, is a home to many people, including Nigerians and non Nigerians. It is also the terminus of the Lagos/Ibadan Expressway.Gemstone_market
One thing that makes the community unique is not the incessant accidents caused by the traffic snarl-up of articulated vehicles that ply the highway running through the community, but the fact that the community serves as a market where gemstones are sold.
The stones come in different sizes and colours. Some are oblong, while others are square-shaped. Some are big, while some are barely noticeable. Some are reddish with a tincture of wine, hue, green and blue, while others are luminous and milky. You could barely notice them as anything with high economic value and demand, because it takes probably trained eyes to tell which among the stones or pebbles lying outside your house is precious and which is not, yet out of them are manufactured the medicated glasses that people with eyes defects wear as well as other consumables, such as cars windscreens, jewelleries, clocks and watches. According to experts, gemstones, birth stones or precious stones in a layman parlance, are ranked next to crude oil, in terms of their economic importance and high demand for them. The stones, which are different in grades, include diamond, jade, tanzanite, jasper, topaz, crystal quartz, tourmaline, agate, aqua, beryl, onyx and many more with high commercial quantity, and found mostly in Nassarawa, Kogi, Kaduna, Ekiti, Osun and Oyo States.
A guide, who took this reporter round some mining sites in Ofiki and Igbojaye  in Atisbo and Itesiwaju Local Government Areas of Oyo State as well as what could be described as gemstones market in Owonikoko, Aba-Igbira, Moya and Old Bank, all sprawling slums in Ojoo,  described gemstones as very useful and part of solid minerals with which the country is endowed.
The stones, according to astrologists, possess healing and medicinal powers. An astrology website, Indianetzone, states that birth stones are used to “boost the spiritual powers of the body by keeping people happy and healthy. Research has proved that gemstones heal people suffering from dangerous and fatal illnesses by energising them..,they are worn to ward off evil..., they stimulate positive and powerful radiation in the body and induce people’s body with energy...” Wearing  of these  stones, the site explains, helps to regulate the dhatus and psycho-physical well-being in human life, explaining that Holy Scriptures describe them as “authoritative agents of energy that regulate human fortune and destiny, induct vital energy and eject the negative energy that induces illness, distress and psychosis. Gems institute harmony, opulence and contentment.”
Though some geologists, who spoke with Sunday Tribune on the healing and medicinal claims, said such astrological claims lacked scientific validation. They, however, explained that the stones truly possess some powerful electro-chemicals, which could make them perform the miracles that astrologists ascribed to them.
Ojoo, where the stones are sometimes displayed for potential buyers to see and buy, though traders, mostly foreigners, often take them inside their shops, has become a beehive of activities or Mecca of sorts for people who meander around the place aimlessly. The community could be mistaken for Sabongari , a Hausa-living community, as different people with uncountable tongues and dialects move up and down, possibly in search of customers.
Of interest to Sunday Tribune is the involvement of non Nigerians, mostly Malian, Guinean, Senegalese, Gambian and Togolese nationals, who reside in the community and deal in gemstones business. Some have their shops and makeshift offices in mosques, which often serve dual purpose, as worship centres and business venues for the foreigners. Sunday Tribune learnt that these foreigners have perfectly integrated themselves with their host community where they make quick buck, except that their languages and conducts sometimes betray them. Since most of them are from French-speaking West African countries, their means of communication is their indigenous languages and French, while some of them who, despite spending many years in Nigeria, could barely speak smattering English. If not looking for customers, they are seen in groups, either drinking Attaya, a Gambian name for Chinese tea, smoking as though they were chimneys or listening to music with occasional exchanges of pleasantries with passers-by and friends who come from time to time to visit them. Some, however, do nothing but loiter in the community, only to return to drinking  joints  scattered all over the community to rest their tired legs and cast jokes.
When asked whether they had valid papers to stay in Nigeria, the leader of Guinean Community in Moya area of Ojoo, Alhaji Alasan Kabba, said all of them had valid documents legitimising their stay in the country. Though some of them claimed to be legal immigrants, they could not provide their passports, while the word “passport” sounded strange to some. Investigation conducted by Sunday Tribune, however, revealed that 85 per cent of the foreigners reside in the state illegally and are involved in illegal mining businesses to eke out a living.
A Gambian, Mr. Drammeh Abdul, who spoke extensively with Sunday Tribune, said he had spent close to 20 years in Nigeria and married a Nigerian, who has kids for him. He, however, dropped a bombshell when he described the marriage as a “marriage of integration”, a necessity, which he said, he needed in order to make himself acceptable to his host community. An indication that most of them, it was learnt, engage in such a marriage with Nigerians living around them for the same purpose.  Mr. Abdul said he wouldn’t want his children to claim Nigerian citizenship, because of what he called his love for Gambia and the alleged presumptuous and ignominious attitude of Nigerians towards foreigners, saying he and his children would rather remain as Gambians and not as Nigerians. He described gemstones business as lucrative, though he was evasive and did not want to divulge the nitty-gritty of the business, adding that he, alongside his countrymen and some Guineans as well as other aliens, whom this reporter contacted to facilitate his taking of gemstones pictures but refused, lived on the proceeds derived from the business.
Another Gambian, who preferred anonymity, told Sunday Tribune that he was managing to stay in Nigeria, as his business had been depleted by Nigeria immigration officials, whom he accused of extorting money from him and other aliens, alleging that they were always raiding them. He told Sunday Tribune point blank that truly a number of foreign miners in Oyo State were sneaked into the country through illegal routes. He accused Nigeria immigration officials of corruption, noting that it was even better to enter Nigeria unnoticed than showing themselves to the immigration officials, whom he said would seize the opportunity to extort money from them and maltreat them.
While narrating his experience at Idi-Iroko border recently, he confided in Sunday Tribune that, “the immigration officials demanded for money from me. I had gone to them to have my passport stamped as required by  ECOWAS Protocol, the officials, rather than performing their official duty, seized my passport  on the grounds that I refused to ‘cooperate’. When I asked them, if I had been uncooperative by coming to them to do the right thing and refused to sneak out through one of the routes I know very well? They said I was talking nonsense and would detain me if I continued teaching them how to do their job.”
The Gambian, who sounded apprehensive, said things were not like that in other countries he had visited, stressing that borders are too porous, “your immigration officials are corrupt and would do anything for money. The truth is that most of us are illegal immigrants doing illegal business, but your immigration officials, through their laxity, encourage us, as they close their eyes to a lot  of things once their palms are greased,” the Gambian alleged.
While combing the ghetto looking for scraps of information and where to take pictures of the precious stones, Sunday Tribune stumbled on some Nigerians of northern extraction, who equally deal in gemstones business. Mohammed Ibrahim, one of them, who claimed to have registered his business with the Federal Government, helped to clear the foggy air shrouding the business in secrecy. He said foreigners dealing in gemstones in the country operated like a cult and spoke what he called “cult language”, so that strangers or people who do not belong to them would not understand their conversation let alone the business as well as their covert dealings. According to Ibrahim, an indigene of Niger State, gemstones could be classified into two, namely precious (first-grade) stones and semi-precious (second-grade) stones. He stated that, “a kilogram of precious stones is sold for between N4,000 and N5,000, while a kilogram of semi-precious stones goes for between N1,000 and N2,000, depending on the grade. A tonne of precious stones is sold for between N4million and N5million.”  He said he often made a profit up to N500,000, after paying the wages of his labourers and offsetting other expenses, hinting that some Chinese business men and their Nigerian partners always patronise them and export the stones to Europe, China and the Americas,” Ibrahim  noted.
A source in the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Agodi, Ibadan, however, told Sunday Tribune that the foreign miners were mischievous, claiming that the service does not  condone any form  of  illegality in the  state and in the country at large. He substantiated the claim that most of the  miners are illegal immigrants who do not have valid papers to reside in the country. He said that  the service could not  claim  to be unaware of their existence and businesses in Nigeria, noting that that was the duty of the immigration service in any nation. He disclosed that it was not the function of the service to issue business permits to foreigners but that  of  a  department in the Ministry of Interior, debunking the allegation that immigration officials often extort money from them. “It is a lie. Can they prove it? No evidence to prove that our men extort money from them. They are mischievous and only want to paint the service in a bad light,” the source said.
Speaking on the ECOWAS Protocol on movement of persons within West African sub-region, the source said that the protocol provided three phases, namely free movement of citizens of ECOWAS-member states, provided that they have valid papers; freedom of residence in any ECOWAS-member states; freedom of citizens in any ECOWAS-member states to establish and own business (es) in any of the states. He, however, noted that the citizens could only enjoy  these  rights if they have valid documents and are duly registered with the immigration service of their host countries. “Most  of these West Africans see Nigeria as their Big Brother with a good economy. This is why they come here in droves. The issue of illegal immigrants is a global phenomenon and not peculiar to Nigeria. We cannot conduct mass deportation of these people because a lot of factors are involved. First, you have to consider the diplomatic relations that Nigeria has with her neighbouring countries. Two, Nigeria is seen as a nation with enough resources and a massive financial power to stabilise the region. How then can the country, which is supposed to maintain regional integration, send away nationals of those countries from her territory? It is absurd and not justifiable. We are aware that some of them are residing illegally in the  state and other parts of the country, but we are incapacitated, considering the fact that Nigeria needs to maintain her good image in the committee of nations,” he declared.
The Comptroller-General of Immigration, Mrs. Rose Chinyere Uzoma, was similarly reported to have said on a television programme, recently that the service would soon commence the issuance of joint passport to citizens of ECOWAS-member states, stressing that the existing ECOWAS Protocol on the free movement of persons has lent legitimacy to the issue  of  joint passport. She said every member state had a duty of screening each applicant for the passport to prevent issuing it to wrong persons. The ECOWAS Commissioner for Trade, Customs and Free Movement of Persons and Goods, Alhaji Mohammed Daramy, a Sierra-Leonean, was also reported to have said that the joint passport would look like a Schengen passport, which according to him, would further bring about integration of citizens of ECOWAS-member states.
Some experts on International Relations, who spoke with Sunday Tribune, on the condition of anonymity, however, criticised the policy and expressed fear about the untoward influence of such a protocol on the  economies of nations perceived to be stronger than others in the sub-region. The influx of citizens from nations, they described as poverty-stricken countries like Mali, Guinea, Chad into Nigeria, could undermine the economy and security of the country. They blamed the sectarian crisis and ethno-religious imbroglio ravaging the northern part of Nigeria on the activities of mercenaries and fundamentalists recruited from Nigeria’s neighbouring countries to kill and maim  Nigerians on their soil.
“Information has it that those Fulani invaders who raided Tiv villages in Benue State and murderers who unleashed violence on Jos and Maiduguri are not Nigerians. Some of them are aliens from Niger Republic, Chad and Sudan. Most faces you come across on the streets of Kano, Abuja, Maiduguri, Lagos, Ibadan, Port Harcourt and Calabar do not belong to people from here. Since they are dark in completion as we are, it is easier for them to mix up, pretend to be Nigerians and perpetuate illegalities, without being noticed. Was it not in the same Nigeria that many foreign nationals attempted to register their data as Nigerians  during the just-concluded voter registration exercise. Our security agencies need to do more, by rounding up and deporting illegal immigrants to their countries. We already have  our loads of burdens here, why is Nigeria courting more problems just because she wants to appear nice to her neighbours? It shows that Nigeria  is a pretending  nation,” he said.
Granting joint passport, according to them would, therefore, provide ample opportunities for these West Africans to throng Nigeria  in  search of  greener  pastures. The activities of illegal immigrants who are covertly milking Nigeria dry  of  its mineral deposits and criminal elements, according to them, would increase and would have been licensed to commit illegalities in the country and denigrate the nation’s economy, stressing that such a protocol would make Nigeria vulnerable  and  sit comfortably on a keg  of gunpowder.
http://www.tribune.com.ng/

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