Small-Scale Industrial Village in Benin City,Nigeria: Establishment,Failure and Phytotoxicity Assessment of Soils from the Abandoned Site

In 1986, the then Nigerian Military Governmentpromulgated a decree stipulating that all small-scaleindustries be moved out of the city centres to designatedlocations in the more remote areas or villages. In linewith that decree, the then Edo State Government decidedto create the Small-scale Industrial village at Ogbesan,near Benin City, Nigeria. This article summarises thesituation leading to the establishment of a typicalsmall-scale industrial site (Ogbesan), its failure andthe current state of the abandoned site. To test thephytotoxic effect of soils taken from the impacted areain the abandoned site at Ogbesan, seeds of Arachishypogaea were used for experiments. Growth of test plantwas generally depressed by soils from the impacted area.One hundred percent germination inhibition was observedin sub-soil obtained from the centrally located plot (D3)in the study area. Twenty eight days after sowing, plantheight, root elongation and leaf area values wereconsistently lower in plants from almost all theexperimental plots than the control and this effect wasmore in the subsoil samples. In the most affected plots,plant height, root elongation and leaf area were 83, 100 and 87% (B5) and 94, 67 and 71% (C1),respectively, lower than the control. The resultsindicate clearly that the activities and wastes dumped atthe sites adversely affect the ability of soils from thesite to support plant growth.