#DiscoverEnuguGov: Iva Valley, Then & Now
The Iva Valley community is located in the city of Enugu, near the New Market and is made up of the collection of camps initially used to house colliery workers of the Iva Valley Coal mine during its heyday.
On my first visit, I chartered a Keke drop from the city center for the short journey. We passed through New Market and a housing estate under construction by the outskirts of the valley. After being dropped off at the catholic mission, inquiries from the locals led me to the old quartermaster of the area who only agreed to an interview after getting express permission for his name to not be published.
In my exploration of the area, I noticed an obvious disconnect between Iva Valley and the rest of the Enugu metropolis. There seemed to be minimal social and public infrastructures with only one motorable road within the community. Also, most of the buildings and structures were ramshackle and seemed to had fallen into disrepair.
Condensed transcript of the interview with the Iva Valley Quartermaster
Q: Do you feel the government can restart the coal mining industry in the area?
A: We have been hearing about that possibility, all this time, for more than 30 years. I don’t know whether because of the companies that applied for coal mining, whether the fault is with them, because here, as far as Enugu is concerned, you can’t do an open case like what is done in Kogi state.
Kogi has no underground coal, theirs is on the surface. It will take more time and effort to get the underground mines re-opened. So maybe that’s what the government is looking at — the cost. Alternatively, it could also have to do with the kind of companies being considered for the mining operation. Companies mining in Mexico and China generally do the shaft kind of mining (underground), so if it’s viable there, it’s a simple matter of contracting these firms and having them bring their “tools” to work in Nigeria. Shaft mining done in Britain, South Africa-it is done there but underground mining here, it will be capital –intensive.
Q: How much trust do you have in the Nigerian government to, in the event they manage to restart mining here, to properly run it?
A: You have seen the Ajaokuta steel mill! A white elephant project if there was one and in the case of the DISCOS, they couldn’t run them effectively and had to privatize them. With Nigerians, we have no patience and rarely think long-term. Other countries make decade-old plans for the future but here in Nigeria, we’re too focused on instant gratification, what we can have and eat NOW. Also, the government has let the land surrounding that area to private firms and individuals, how do you expect them to just ask those people to pack up and leave?
The Iva Valley Mine
The name of the valley — “Iva valley” is derived from the beautiful landscape of the Milken hills at Ngwo, Enugu. The area is surrounded by different hills, to form the “valley” in the name.
The Iva Valley coal mine opened in 1917 and served as an economic boost to the region, providing jobs for thousands of inhabitants in the area and beyond.
Just like the mine at Obwetti, the Iva valley mine used the ‘pillar and stall’ system for mining coal.
In this system, the mine and miners were divided into different sections of specialized workers such as hewers, tubmen, etc.
However, because the mine was built without proper planning and constrained time limits, there were no housing provisions considered for the majority of the employed workers.
Hence, camps were established by the federal government for the workers and their families to live, and to date, these camps exist around the area, but now fully transitioned into residential areas.
Initially, two camps were built to accommodate the workers. The first, “camp 1” in the most central area to the mines and a mini-market called the “afia 4” was established by the workers. The market proved to be a central area where colliery workers went to unwind after work. The second, “camp 2” was situated at the boundary between the pottery and the first camp.
With the steady influx of colliery workers in the areas, the initial two camps could not accommodate the workers, so more camps were built along the valley of the Milken Hills. These new quarters were named after the valley in which they were situated with names like valley road 1, valley road 2 and forestry hill.
Though, the last camp, forestry hill was later converted to the maternity for the wives of the colliery workers. Besides, a plantation camp was established to manage the forest reserves.
These rapid developments made Iva valley a commercial community in the state with vast potentials and soon caught the attention of religious missionaries who decided to establish a foothold in the area after negotiations with the Nigerian Coal Corporation and approval from the Federal Government. The first church in the valley was established at camp 2, soon followed by the church missionary society (CMS).
The coal mined in Iva valley was of great importance during the two world wars and served as a strategic source of fuel for railways for the Nigerian government, numerous West African countries and England.
After the world wars, the mines were vital for rebuilding infrastructures by the post-war government who planned to maximize outputs to pay off accumulated debts from the war.
Many of the miners served in the British armed forces and Post-war returned home with heightened awareness on their responsibilities to the people. The Enugu colliers supported maternity clinics, road building, clean water supplies and the erection of schools. Yet, these efforts and commitments were undermined by the economic uncertainty of rostering.
The Iva Valley Tragedy
70 years ago, on the 18th of November, 1949 the peace in the area was shattered to devastating consequences.
The history of the colliery is full of a series of labor crises as a result of autocratic management.
Because of poor conditions of service, physical exertions and low wages, the work was usually disgusting resulting in desertion by local miners.
This situation was worsened by the fact that most laborers did not come voluntarily, but recruited by force by their Local chiefs.
The miners had gathered to protest terrible working conditions and demand for pay owed them during a period of casualization known as “rostering” which was later declared illegal.
They were also owed housing and travel allowances. In addition to these grievances, were demands for the upgrade of the mine hewers to artisans.
Realizing their demands would not be met otherwise, the workers began a ‘go-slow” strike and the response of the government was to fire suspected ringleaders of the strike with more than 50 miners sacked.
At the time, there were growing nationalist agitations and this made the government decide to move the explosives out of the mines. The response of the miners to this directive was to refuse to assist management with the evacuation of the explosives, thus making the directive impossible to carry out.
Prior to the organized protest, there had been several instances of the miners being mistreated on several occasions with one particular incident recorded on the 1st of November 1949, where a British manager called Yates had physically assaulted a miners’ union leader, Okwudili Ojiyi who courageously reported the offending manager and brought up an assault case after which Yates was prosecuted and punished.
It must be noted that at the time, this was a rare victory, for the manager’s assault of Okwudili was not an isolated incident. Numerous British supervisors were often demeaning, and in many instances, physically assaulted local miners.
At this time, Enugu was home to the Zikist Independence movement (ZIM) named after the great visionary, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe who strove for a unified, independent Nigeria. Naturally, the colonial leaders of the country were opposed to this kind of independent thinking and reacted in their usual heavy-handed manner by mustering a contingent of Hausa policemen from the north to remove the mine explosives.
The government felt local Igbo constables fraternized with the workers who refused to help move the explosives and justified their actions using the strict work demarcations imposed by the British colonialists for the striking miners were hewers and tubmen. As striking was banned, the previously mentioned Okwudili Ojiyi who served as the General Secretary of the union and was a staunch Zikist, taught the miners in secrecy, a modified version of the go-slow tactic adopted by the Durham miners which they called “welu nwayo” that translates as “go slow”.
The Iva Valley massacre was initiated by a British officer, Captain F.S Phillip who was to oversee the evacuation of the explosives alongside the local policemen and the two other British officers.
The miners had tied strips of red cloth to their helmets to show solidarity and as was their custom, facing the armed troops, danced and chanted war songs to foster courage and hold their ground.
Unfortunately, panic set in for Phillip who allowed his bigotry and racist stereotypes influence him in the process to shoot dead, a young Hewer, Sunday Anyasado from Owerri who was newly married. Further victims included a machine man, Livinus Okechukwuma from Owerri and a Tubman, Okafor Ageni who had ventured out of the mine to check the situation.
The captain and his men continued firing at the defenseless miners for several minutes, many miners were shot in the back by the cowardly armed forces as they attempted to flee for their lives. Dead and wounded were left to lay where they had been cut down.
Over 21 miners were killed immediately and over 47 injured and taken for medical attention. Of those injured, 11 later died, taking the death toll lost to 32.
#Ozoemena
Those 87 rounds fired that day rang the death knell for British colonial rule in Nigeria for the massacre fanned the embers of nationalist sympathy into burning flames that spread from the region to the state, then country and paved the way for the eventual ousting of the colonial leaders and the independence of Nigeria in 1960.
Fading as an Economic Force
Coal was first discovered in Enugu in 1909 and exploration started six years in Ogbete. Major coal deposits were discovered in Ezinmo, Amansiodo, and Iva valley among others within Eastern Nigeria and for a long time, the discovery and exploration of coal; the world’s oldest commercial fuel contributed greatly to the creation of jobs in the country and the economy. All this changed with the discovery of oil in the country.
The Nigerian railway corporation was the biggest consumer of coal in the country which changed by the discovery of crude oil with diesel-powered engines that quickly replaced coal-powered engines. Similar to power generation in the country, with the power corporation changing its generation equipment from coal to diesel and gas.
The discovery of oil might not have spelled doom for the Nigerian coal industry, however. China has been the biggest coal producer in the world for the last three decades. In 2012, china produced 3.6 billion tons of coal, 47% of the world’s total output. Countries like Germany and the USA rank high among coal producers in the world.
Yet, despite the proven commercial viability, Nigeria does not harness the potential of the vast reserves of over two billion tons of coal, with 650 million tons already proven.
Experts have projected that if revitalized and working at peak efficiency, the coal industry could fetch Nigeria up to five billion naira in export earnings.
In what would become synonymous with Nigeria’s handling of resources, the government and the colliery management would eventually run the mines into the ground and cause the eventual collapse of mine operations.
The Nigerian civil war played a major part in the demise of the coal industry. Pre-civil war, the coal mining industry was operating at peak efficiency with one million tons produced in 1959. Post-war, however, the mines began to drop down levels of production with many mines abandoned.
The closure of the Oji river coal-fired station most especially affected the production of coal within the Eastern region and country.
Repeated attempts to import mining equipment failed as the implementation and maintenance proved troublesome. Before long, corporations and then the Federal government began to steer clear of Coal mining.
In 1950, the Ogbete mine operations, as well as the other mine operations in the country, were merged to form a new corporation called the Nigerian Coal Corporation (NCC) who was tasked with exploiting coal resources.
But, the strategies involved in the implementation of policies were flawed and unsustainable with less focus on technological capabilities such as suitable infrastructure and adequate transportation logistics and rather more on increased productivity. This jeopardized the entire transfer process and caused practical difficulties leading to its end as a white elephant project.
The Status of Coal Today
Worldwide, many major industrialists and power generating companies import coal from South Africa, ostensibly to switch over to coal-powered turbines as a result of difficulty getting gas to fuel their power plants.
Coal as a source of power would greatly increase our power generation capacity and help with the perennial power crisis.
Around four years ago, Dangote Cement Plc placed an order for 30,000 tons of coal from South Africa to power their 60-megawatts plants. $250 million was earmarked for this project and would include the establishment of three plants at Obajana, Kogi State, Gboko in Benue state and Ibeshe in Ogun state.
Although these developments would help boost the economy of Nigeria and create jobs, it sparked a fierce debate on the abandoned 2.75 million tons of coal deposits in the country waiting to be harnessed. I can’t but wonder how much Nigeria stands to benefit if we properly mined, used and exported our coal deposits instead?
Nigeria’s coal deposits can be found in 17 states in the country in generous quantities. Some of these are located in states like Enugu, Gombe, Kogi, and Benue. There exists over 639 million tons of coal reserve proven with another 2.75 billion tons in reserve.
The problem for every government post-civil war, however, has been how to properly extract and process this mineral.
One of the biggest problems of the Nigerian government is the abandonment of projects by new politicians in office. New politicians prefer to abandon projects started by their predecessors and start new projects of their own, which in turn would be abandoned by their successors when they leave office if as is often the case, they do not complete these projects before the end of their tenure. This lack of coordinated and consistent development is a depressing wheel that seems to have no plans of stopping.
During the past tenure, the former president of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan’s administration had allocated coal mining blocks to prospective miners but to date, full exploration is yet to begin. The project was designed to power a 1,200-megawatt plant to be built in Enugu, using coal from the Ezima mine.
Nigeria, despite having the largest and most environmentally-friendly coal deposits, as a country, still depends on the importation of coal to fulfill our needs, a situation that costs us billions of dollars in revenue yearly.
Mining is no longer carried out at the Onyeama, Iva Valley, Ogbete and Okpara mines but the Federal Government’s signing of a $3.7 billion Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a Chinese firm, HTG-Pacific Energy Consortium, to generate power from coal in Enugu might bode well for the future.
The most sustainable remedy is for the government to reopen the mines even as the world transitions into more renewable forms of energy.
Iva Valley Economy Now
On arrival in Enugu, hawkers of the ubiquitous Okpa delicacy alongside water tankers are a common sight on the roads. A popular misconception is that because of the coal deposits in Enugu, it is hard to get good water supply in the city, so tankers have to bring water from places as far away as the Ninth mile, Udi and closer to home, the Nigerian Army barracks at Abakpa. In addition to these, The Iva Valley and the Ajali water schemes are functional.
Enugu suffers from inadequate water supply because of its growing population. One constant since the days before the population boom and now is the Iva valley reservoir which has provided water for the people of the state for decades.
The Iva valley reservoir was first commissioned to meet the needs of the expatriate workers at the Iva valley mines but as the population of the state continued to grow, the reservoir expanded to deliver water to the government quarters and certain parts of the city.
Iva valley’s major economic and social activities seem to be coordinated by the Church mission which has embarked on numerous projects within the area.
The mines represent the culture of waste common in Nigeria. Reopening the mines properly would help boost the national economy and improve the earning power of local citizens.
The Government and People, Our Responsibilities
The deaths of the Iva Valley coal miners led to the eventual independence of Nigeria.
These Iva valley martyrs deserve an official day set aside to celebrate their brave sacrifices. They are a part of our history and deserve to be remembered.
Cultural institutions like The Centre for Memories, iServe2050 and Enugu Literary Society helped acknowledge and celebrate these heroes with a memorial homage event this past weekend.
The writers, leaders and average citizens need to join efforts to tell these stories in our schools, teach it to our kids, create and produce documentaries about our narratives and help foster honest conversations on what Enugu can become.
The coal industry and railway transportation, which was easily the identifiable hub of economic activities, has over the years become rustic, seems to serve as a mere footnote in the economic history of the community, state, and the entire nation.
The National Coal Corporation folded in 2002. The former miners were not officially laid off; neither was their employment terminated. The only legacy of mining they have is the Colliery Quarters near Iva Valley where many still live.
To date, a large number of former miners and their families are yet to receive the owed monies from their service. The majority have lost hope.
My visit to this historic place taught me a lot about the brave miners and opened my eyes to the plight of the community.
During the last general elections, party agents did the usual rounds, shared money and Okpa to those who came out to vote and went home to forget about the people of the region. Maybe, until the next general elections.
As we celebrate these brave miners of Iva valley this month and beyond, it is important to never forget their sacrifice, for the Igbo man strives for independence, growth, and fairness.
Let us not forget our brothers’ labors.
#Echefula
#Ozoemena
Edited by Ese Okereka
Further Reading
- Nigerian Coal Corporation, 1951 Annual Report
- The Iva Valley Colliers https://wessexsolidarity.wordpress.com/mal-contents-rants/the-iva-valley-colliers/
- Sorrowful Songs from the Valley of Iva https://thenationonlineng.net/sorrowful-songs-from-the-valley-of-iva/
- Ahuekwe, C. O. (2017, July 16) Facts and History: The Massacre of Iva Valley. Retrieved from http://www.click042.com/features/facts-and-history/massacre-iva-valley/
- Harman, M. (2018, January 24). Libcom.org. Retrieved from Libcom: https://libcom.org/history/iva-valley-miners-strike-massacre-enugu-colliery-1949
- Ugwu, K. I. (2019) Evolution of Ngwo (An overview of her neighbouring towns) UJIPWORLD CREATION Publishers, 291 Pages.
