Azura-Edo Independent Power Plant Environmental Impact ... - IFC

have no formal schooling; while approximately 15-17 percent of both men and
women have finished nursery school and the same percentage have finished
primary school (Nigerian Census, 2006).
Literacy levels in the Project area are much lower that the state average,
possibly because there is very little in the way of educational infrastructure in
the Project area. At the time that an EIA was conducted for the Ihovbor-
Evboeka Power Plant, Ihovbor-Evboeka community had no schools at all,
Idunmwowina-Urho-Nisen had only a nursery school and Orior-Osemwende
had a primary school. Thus children from the communities had to travel to
Benin to go to secondary school.
As a result of poor educational services and access, education levels in the
Project-affected communities are low. However, NIPP has constructed new
school within the Ihovbor-Evboeka area through their EPC contractor. The
school is currently non-functional since the handing over of the school from
NIPP to local authority has not been done.
5.7.6 Cultural Sites and Cultural Heritage
As noted in Section 5.3.2, traditional religious worship is widely practiced in
the Project area, often alongside other formal religions (namely Christianity
and Islam). Among stakeholders in the three communities, men were more
likely to report practicing traditional worship than women.
Traditional worship involves making sacrifices or offering gifts at sacred sites
and shrines to traditional deities. While some of these sacred sites are located
within the communities, many are located in nearby forests. These forest
areas are very important to the communities and all economic activity of any
sort (eg logging, hunting or the collecting of any non-timber forest products (1)
) is expressly forbidden. The only activity that is permitted is worship of the
traditional gods.
Table 5.4, Table 5.5 and Table 5.6 list the sacred sites identified within the EIA
conducted for the NIPP within and around Orior-Osemwende, Ihovbor and
Idunmwowina-Urho-Nisen with their location, the offerings made at these
sites, when and how often such worship takes place.
Table 5.4
Cultural Sites in Ihovbor-Evboeka
Name of sacred site
worshipped in
community
Location
Materials used for
worshipping
Osun–Ewuare Forest Goat, sheep, cow,
chicken
Time of year/
frequency of worship
April-May/ annually
(1) Non-Timber Forest products include forest fruit, forest vegetables, rattan canes, honey, nuts, bush meat. These are
commonly collected by people and might be consumed in the household or sold in markets for cash income.
AZURA EDO IPP
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DRAFT EIA REPORT