By The Pivot Investigations Desk
The first thing you notice when you enter Agbabu is the silence. Not the peaceful type, but the sort that settles over a place waiting too long for promises that never materialise. The mud houses still stand, the river still snakes quietly behind the village, and the people speak of bitumen like a family myth—told too often, fulfilled too rarely.
Ondo State’s bitumen story is an old one. Beneath the soils of Agbabu, Ode-Irele, Ore, Ilutitun and Okitipupa lies one of the largest deposits of bitumen in the world—so massive that countries with far less have built entire industries on theirs. Yet here, the mineral remains untouched, resting quietly where nature stored it, occasionally awakened by a new delegation of government officials bearing files, cameras and hopeful speeches.
During a recent visit on a dusty harmattan morning, The Pivot met Pa Olawale Omoniyi, a retired teacher in Agbabu whose disappointment is almost worn smooth from repetition. Leaning on his walking stick, he pointed to a bushy clearing. A company once arrived there with machines, dug test pits, took measurements, and vanished—just like the many before them. “They come during elections and tell us work will start soon,” he said. “But once the votes are counted, we won’t see any of them again.”
The pattern extends beyond the community. Investors from Canada, South Africa and Europe once took interest. They came with geologists, environmental consultants and feasibility teams. But after months of activities and photo opportunities, each quietly withdrew. According to Dr. Adegboye Afolabi, a petroleum economist, the problem has never been about the size or quality of the bitumen. It has always been about Nigeria itself. “Investors are not scared of bitumen,” he said. “They are scared of an unpredictable environment—policies that shift like wind, licenses trapped in Abuja, no clear roadmap, and an economy where long-term investment feels unsafe.”
Meanwhile, young people in the region wait in an uneasy mix of hope and fear. At the riverbank where fishermen return with their nets, 27-year-old Ayobami Akinrinmade told The Pivot: “We want jobs, that’s true. But we also depend on this water, on our land. Government should show us the real plan, not just grammar.” His concern mirrors a global pattern—countries that rushed bitumen mining without environmental care paid heavily with polluted waters and damaged ecosystems.
Environmental activists in Ondo echo these fears. Mrs. Tolu Fadeyi of EcoWatch Ondo argued that secrecy remains the biggest threat. “Nobody knows what government has signed or is planning. No environmental plan has been shown to host communities. You cannot gamble with people’s future and expect trust.”
State officials insist their hands are tied. Mining lies on the Exclusive Legislative List, meaning only the federal government can issue mining licenses or drive extraction. A senior officer in the Ministry of Natural Resources admitted the frustration: “People blame the governor. But Abuja controls everything. Without decentralisation, there is little any state can do.”
Yet even this does not tell the full story. Ondo has suffered inconsistent policies across administrations. One government signs MoUs, another discards them. Committees are formed but rarely survive beyond a political cycle. Groundbreaking ceremonies come with fanfare, only for the site to return to bush within a year.
A senior director in the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development told The Pivot that Nigeria has not built the structure needed for heavy industrial mining. “Bitumen requires a 20-year investment horizon. Nigeria operates on four-year political cycles. Investors won’t risk billions on a system that resets itself every election.”
Meanwhile, in Ondo South, life remains hard. Mothers still trek long distances for water. Young graduates idle at roadside shops scrolling through job adverts. Farmers struggle to sell produce because industries that should process them simply do not exist. They have all heard the same bitumen story repeated for decades. What they have not seen is progress.
In Ode-Irele, cassava farmer Mrs. Morayo Ajijola captured the people’s exhaustion. “We just want honesty. If bitumen will help us, start. If it will damage our land, tell us. What we cannot bear anymore are empty promises.”
Experts agree that if managed well, bitumen could transform Ondo’s fortunes. It could create tens of thousands of jobs, lower road construction costs, revive abandoned industries, and drastically expand the state’s internally generated revenue. Ondo South, neglected for decades, could become the next industrial corridor.
But political hesitation, bureaucratic confusion, entrenched interests profiting from imported bitumen, and the absence of transparency have kept the wealth underground.
As The Pivot team was driving out of Agbabu, a barefoot boy waved us goodbye and asked a question that lingered long after the dust settled: “Uncle, when will they start the bitumen?”
It is a question no government official, investor, or policymaker has answered truthfully for over fifty years. And until someone finally does, Ondo’s greatest resource will remain what it has always been—untapped, unclaimed and buried in the quiet soil beneath the people who need it most.
A state rich below, struggling above.
