It is another goldmine that has not been discovered by many people. It is however going on in most of the Bayelsa forests even though the state government has employed some forest guards but this lucrative business is still going on in some communities unabated. It is called logging business. Yes, that same journey that made this reporter to discover so many things in that small and sleepy Sangana community in Brass Local Government Area of Bayelsa State led her to Salome Abadida, a wood logger. Although, the business is mainly done by men, she is like a man now because she found herself in the field of men doing what no woman has been has found doing. A graduate of Accounting from University of Calabar, Abadida in her late 30s now looks like a man with so much muscles and fearless. But one thing about her is that she is very happy doing what most women cannot do as she quickly obliged to grant interview to this reporter.
Narrating how it all began, Abadida said: “A man gave me a teaching job. After some time, he was suspended as a Local Government Chairman. Later, they went to court and won. So, they dropped some names and I was among them. I have been in this logging business for five years. My father was doing it at Port Harcourt before I took over from him. “Before I took over from my late dad, I was into fish business going to Port Harcourt to sell them. I was thinking that the fish business was too hard for me because sometimes they steal my fish, boat will spoil and before they will repair the boat, people have all left. “And if they did not dry the fish well, they will spoil. I decided to leave the fish business and decided to join the logging business thinking that it will be better but when I went into the business, I discovered that it is even more difficult”.
“In the last five years, it has not been so bad. At least, the income is okay, but the business needs more money. If you have workers, you will be feeding them, they will tell you their wives need money. “Sometimes if their wives are not here with them, you have to give them money to send to them. You clothe them, as they are dropping saw for you, the machines belongs to them. Yet, anything that spoils in the machine, you have to repair it on the account that they pay later. But, if the machine is your own the prize is also different. You repair their machines and they pay you with woods. “The business is lucrative when you understand the business like me. They said I’m soft and I have lost so much money. I have changed like three to four operators. One even went away with my N350, 000. “I later found out that buying the wood ready made is better than employing those to saw for me. “Men also bully me. There was a time I went to the forest, one man saw me and started shouting to my operator asking him why he brought a woman and I was laughing at him. I didn’t even understand becuse they were speaking their language. “It was later the operator told me and I was like in my own village again because they are wearing rubbish there. They can dress anyhow. If they like, they can be naked when they are carrying wood. “Sometimes, you can walk into them when they are taking their bath. If I follow them inside the forest sometimes to drink water, if I didn’t carry water from here, it is inside the forest that they will go and look for anyhow water. “Sometimes, the colour is brown. Me too, I will follow them and drink it. I will tell them that this is my place, nothing will happen to me and nothing is happening to me. “Sometimes, I use to have argument with them. Sometimes, they will saw woods and sell at my back. Like last October, they saw that wood from March to May. They sawed almost four hundred pieces for me, the man lied it was six hundred and I have paid N240,000 for six hundred pieces at the rate of N400 per one. “I used to sleep in the forest sometimes. The thing is that most of the times they are with their wives too. They are living there. They cook unless they want to come to the town to buy something. Like today, market day, they have started disturbing me for money and I told them that there is no money”.
“They are not happy but there is nothing they can do because the finance is not flowing like that for them to say come and sit down. I’m the one planning that I want to leave the business becuse it is too stressful like now my legs are paining me. “Sometimes, I will be jumping in the forest. When I want to go and check my wood sometimes, water will almost get to my neck. Rainy season has not started well. If rain falls for like a week non –stop, before you know it, the water level will rise and you have to swim inside”.
Cutting down of young woods
“Sometimes, in the process of cutting the strong ones, the young ones will be destroyed. The forest has different kind of pattern. If you go to some side it is swampy. I came to find out that atimes when they are dropping a tree, it can carry up to four or five more trees down and most of them are still young. “They said the other time that government said we should stop cutting trees. So, in order to stop, they started from strangers because the rate at which the strangers are cutting the trees is too much and not like us. It is not our business. They taught us the business”.
“The gods can be angry, but we don’t know. Like one boy that the thing happened to, somebody told him that he should not cut a particular tree. He went ahead to cut and the tree did kick back and hit his lap, breaking his bone. Right now, he is undergoing treatment somewhere”.
Is it contributing to erosion problem?
Since I was born, the erosion problem has been there. Before, if you want to cross to the other side, they said it was not far but we don’t know what happened and that time we were not cutting woods. For me, I see it as sea encroachment after all, they are doing oil exploration here. So many things are going on. You will just see pipes everywhere. “The cutting of trees has contributed to the sea encroachment for now but before now I didn’t see it as a problem because the trees were standing before. Like when you go to the sea shore you see mango trees, coconut trees but they are all gone now. If our boats goes there to load wood, sometimes, the woods will just spoil the boat”.
“If they are sawing it for you according the quantity, like six hundred pieces of cubic, if he is a good operator, he can saw them within one month. When he is through, you pay him, pay the carrier and pass them through the sea side before you take them down to where they will load them. “Then the big boat will take them to Port Harcourt. In each wood, you can gain five hundred naira, sometimes, more, but if that wood falls and hit you, may be on your leg, it will break. “Like two persons cannot use their legs. Tree fell on them. They call it kick back. When they drop a tree, it can fall back on them or it can go and hit another one and that one will fall on them. “The wood work is very demanding. But if you can have patience and wait till the thing comes out for you to go and sell. If you sell five hundred naira multiply by the number of woods you have, that is theamount of money you make but sometimes they can sink with the wood and that will be another loss. “Sometimes, I fight. They will hold my money. When I asked them to come and do the work, they will be telling stories, before you know it, they are gone. At a time, I wanted to quit because I lost so much money. That was around January, but now, I have bounced back”.
“Government said we should stop cutting the woods, but our people said that all of us cannot stop once because there will be problem in the community. “They now said the strangers should be stopped first, then we can continue because we are not as many as the strangers. We are just only about four people from my community that have learnt how to saw by ourselves”. The state’s Commissioner for Environment, Iselemah Gbarambiri, could not be reached to comment as calls put across to his phone were not responded to.
“I need money for engine parts. The engine parts used to spoil quickly. If you want to use the main fuel, it is money. Money for carriers too. Sometimes, each wood is five hundred naira to bring them out and I don’t have all the money all the time. Let the government help me with maybe some loans to continue the business”.
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