11/04/2026
PRESS RELEASE
ISSUE OF SETBACKS OF BUILDINGS IN THE SCOUT CAMP
A recent rainstorm uprooted a tree from the Ogba Zoo that landed on the roof of a building in the Scout Camp in Benin. The Scout Commissioner promptly invited a Media station to broadcast the incident , alleging that the Zoo poses perennial dangers to lives and property in the Scout Camp. The comments went further to recommend that the Zoo be relocated. The Commissioner alluded to previous incidents in which the Zoo has been intransigent to the cutting down of all trees posing threats to the Scout.
However, the report failed to mention that in all construction of buildings carried out by the Scout on the Zoo axis, they consistently violated the required setbacks from the common fence. The Zoo is a known nature park with protected forest ecosystems, but rather than consider a buffer from the Zoo, the Scout has placed structures averaging a metre distance from the fence.
Just last year, the Zoo Management had cause to take this matter to the Forestry Commission, the Ministry of Physical Planning and the highest echelon of the Scout Council, as the Scout was carrying out new structures without any setbacks from the fence. It was further established that these structures have no building permits. The Scout Camp, even as a designated international camp, has no masterplan. The Zoo has a masterplan.
Many of the Scout structures are visibly rickety and in extreme dilapidation. It was the considered view that all the structures hugging the Zoo fence should be relocated without delay. We have it in good authority that there was actually no shared boundary between the Zoo and the Scout, as a road separated the two facilities, but the Scout encroached on the road to start building next to the Zoo fence, even with clear knowledge that the Zoo has always been a forest estate.
The current management of the Zoo met a thick forest in this section of the estate and has done much to remove most of the trees as they were leaning over the fence and had been a clear drop over the Scout buildings. We have also carried out repeated repairs of the roofs regularly threatened by falling trees., but new trees grow fast and their heights would require us to clear over a hundred meters to permanently avoid the Scout buildings., but the Scout has not planned any measure to give their structures the required setback from the fence and selfishly think the Zoo should become a grassland. In the last engagement with stakeholders last year, we warned the Scouts that they should relocate all their illegal structures from close proximity to the fence, so that in any eventuality , it will be only the fence that will be affected. We equally placed a caveat that in the failure of such relocation of such illegal structures, the Zoo will not be liable.
It is instructive to note that the Scout has recently sold most of their prime property and has accruals of hundreds of millions of Naira. But in a show of prodigal proclivity, they have equally sold a viable section of the Camp that should ideally serve the relocation of the illegal structures hugging the Zoo fence. This latest alienation of the Camp land is sacrilegious because it was bequeathed by Oba Akenzua of blessed memory. Also, by its status as an international Camp for black Africa, there was no basis for right thinking Scouts to use a 80 feet × 300 feet section of the Camp to settle a lawyer they claim to be owing N5.M , when they already have the proceeds of over N700M from the sale of other property. Without pressure on the Scout to carry out this relocation, the huge sums would be frittered away on some frivolous projects or embezzlement.
In conclusion, rather than the perverted call by the Scout to relocate the zoo. the regulatory authorities should ensure that the Scout should comply with statutory planning regulations.
A. Ehanire
For Ogba Zoo & Nature Park
April 10, 2026
