Environment Genocide: ‘Time for Remediation, Restoration, Reparation is Now’

Olusegun Samuel in Yenagoa

Stakeholders including environmentalists and human rights crusaders, yesterday gathered at the 4th Nigeria Delta Alternatives Convergence (NDAC) summit, held in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, with a call for action in putting an end to the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Niger Delta ecosystems.

The stakeholders all agreed that the time of talks, summits and seminars are over and agreed  that going into social actions with the people concerned, who should be the driver of the struggle like the Ogoni did years ago, as the political class has failed.

The Convener,  Nnimmio Bassey,  in his opening address, lamented that two years after the presentation of the report of the Bayelsa State Oil and Environment Commission (BSOEC) and with the flurry of activities that accompany it’s presentation, not a word, not a perceptible step, has been seen regarding a real response to the report. 

Nnimmo Bassey, who is the Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation, (HOMEF) reminded the participants that genocide is an international crime under the Rome Statutes and is defined as “the deliberate and systemic destruction of a group of people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race.

He said: “Thirty years after the tragic deaths and the judicial murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa and other Ogoni leaders, there is yet to be a closure on the Ogoni tragedy.” 

“The complexity of the clean-up exercise has rendered the region a huge laboratory for studies on how to handle such massive ecocide. Amid this open wound some political forces still only see possibilities of petrodollars and care little about the discounting of lives in the region.”

“We must never make the mistake of thinking that environmental degradation in one part of the region is a burden only for the directly affected part. 

The NDAC Manifesto clearly states that the Niger Delta region is one of the most sensitive ecosystems in the world, and that “adverse activity in one place immediately results in impacts across the entire ecosystem.” Thus, when we speak of environmental genocide in Bayelsa State, we are inevitably speaking of environmental genocide in the entire Niger Delta.

“We must not forget that genocide is a deliberate and systemic crime. It does not happen by accident. No, it does not happen by chance. It is deliberate and deeply systemic”.

Bassey, therefore called for urgent action especially as the oil companies had started a shady divestment as time is running out and delay is a luxury the people cannot afford considering the heavy injuries being inflicted on the people and environment on a daily basis. “It is indeed time for remediation, restoration and reparations.”

The keynote speaker, Coordinator, Social Action International, Dr. Isaac ‘Asume’ Osuoka,  said for over 60 years, the Niger Delta’s land and waters have been ravaged by unrelenting oil pollution.

A fact he said was comprehensively documented in two landmark assessments: the 2023 Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission (BSOEC) report and the 2011 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland. 

He said: “These reports do not merely present technical data; they serve as indictments of a prolonged and systemic pattern of environmental genocide inflicted on our communities through deliberately reckless oil extraction.”

While joining others for call for actions, he said though the oil majors have their blames, the saddest thing is that most of the problems are political and self inflicted by the communities   themselves.

Speaking on the theme.”Environmental Genocide and the Struggle for Justice in the Niger Delta: Why Shell’s Divestment Must Be Stopped” Osuoka, identified politics and other self inflicted factors as reason behind the agonies Niger Deltans oil bearing communities are suffering.

He said: “I will then examine the political obstacles to implementing these recommendations. When I say political, I am not simply referring to the often cited “lack of political will.” Rather, I refer to the very structure of the Nigerian state and the political order established under the fourth Republic. 

“This political order, with its foundational 1999 Constitution – is part of the problem. A constitution foisted on the people by military decree, without legitimacy or popular consent, cannot produce democratic and responsive environmental governance.”

“We must also account for the resurgence of a global neocolonial extractivist regime – typified by the Trump-era “drill-baby-drill” politics – that subordinates environmental integrity to the interests of global capital.”

He said that political elite that is deliberately turning its people into bandits to secure political advantage are surely building monster I that will surely come back to haunt them.