With statistics glaringly showing that the Niger Delta region is one of the most polluted places in the world, an environmental activist, Dr. Nnimmo Bassey has called on the people of the region to rise and demand ecological justice.

He declared that the Niger Delta region alone has over 1,481 wells, 275 flow stations, over 7,000 kilometres length of oil and gas pipelines and over 120 gas flare furnaces, thus rendering it as an ecological bomb.

Bassey made this call at a One-Day Conversation on the recently approved Nigerian Petroleum Industry Act on Wednesday, March 9, 2022 at the Ken Saro Wiwa Foundation Innovation Hub in Port Harcourt, Rivers State organized by the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) and We the People.

Making a presentation at the event, Nnimmo Bassey, who is also the Director of HOMEF, various government interventions deployed since the onset of oil exploration in the region have rather been inadequate and failed palliatives than profitable engagements for the impacted and exploited communities, stressing that “from the start, the business of oil extraction operated as a mix of corporate greed and state backed repression”.

“All efforts to placate and assuage the massive harms inflicted on the Niger Delta has been carried out through various means including oil company driven Memoranda of Understanding with communities, and various government interventions through agencies such as Niger Delta Development Board (NDDB) established in 1961, the Niger Delta Basin and Rural Development Authority (NDBRDA) established in 1976, the Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC) established in 1992, the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) in 1995,  Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) established in 2000 and the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs created in 2008.”

“These bandages have only sought to cover up festering wounds, without dealing with the fundamental ailments that over six decades of disastrous exploitation has wrought. And they have mostly failed.”

The global advocate for environmental justice regretted that relationship management by private and public sector institutions and the impacted communities have been devoid of consultations or the consent of the people.

“While it is important that people living in locations where investors, governments or institutions carry out projects are consulted, in the Niger Delta, this has never been the case.”

“The free, prior and informed consent of the people have never been sought or received. These relations of production have remained largely the same from pre-colonial to colonial and present neo-colonial times.”

“Even in decisions regarding investments, development, or even infrastructural projects, there is willful neglect and refusal to consult or engage the people in decision making processes.”

“Projects are often thrown at communities even when they are not the priority needs of the people. Little wonder that the projects get abandoned during construction or are left to rot after completion.”

In his presentation, Ken Henshaw of We the People accused the Nigerian Federal Government of deploying the recently passed Petroleum Industry Act as a criminalization mechanism against the communities hosting oil and gas activities across the country.

He stressed that this was evident in the PIA’s provisions which state inter alia that “Where in any year, an act of vandalism, sabotage or other civil unrest occurs that causes damage to petroleum and designated facilities or disrupts production activities within the host community, the community shall forfeit its entitlement to the extent of the cost of repairs of the damage that resulted from the activity with respect to the provisions of this Act within that financial year”.

He further drew attention to the fact that while the PIA establishes a Host Communities development framework to transfer benefits to communities, it also divests communities of any participatory roles in managing the funds therein or even determining who runs the trust as it confers overriding powers to manage the 3% of operational costs contributed to the trust in any manner they deem appropriate on the oil companies.

He lamented that though the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) have both predicated the spate of oil spills on equipment failure, the PIA inadvertently aligns with the erroneous view being peddled by oil companies that communities are responsible for sabotage on pipelines and oil theft, saying that the aim was to criminalize “oil producing communities and shield oil companies from responsibility for the ongoing ecocide in the region”.

Henshaw observes with dismay that though the PIA makes gas flaring illegal, it also creates entrenches an exemptions regime which ensures that gas flaring continues unchecked, empowers government to issue licenses to oil companies to flare, does not state a definite date for ending gas flaring, noting that “given the health and environmental challenges associated with gas flaring, this is an unfortunately onslaught on the ecology and health of the people of the region”.

The One-Day Conversation was a convergence of civil society, the Media and other stakeholders across the Niger Delta region and witnessed robust conversations on the way forward for the communities impacted by energy related activities in the region.