Environmentalists harp on climate action, environment justice to build a resilient future for N/Delta region

By Obiabin Onukwugha

Environmental activists at the 3rd Niger Delta Climate Change Conference, convened by the Lekeh Development Foundation, harped on climate action and environmental justice in order to build a resilient future for the region.

According to them, the non-implentation of laws such as the National Climate Action Plan, NCAA, the Petroleum Industry Act, PIA, the hurried assets divestment by oil multi nationals, failure to carry out a health audit, payment of climate debt, proper cleanup and remediation of communities of the Niger Delta, was driving the region into untold hardships and conflicts.

In a Keynote Speech at the Women and Climate Change Session on Friday, an environmental advocate and Director, Centre for Environment Media and Development Communications, Constance Meju stated that climate change, herders attacks and insecurity were driving hunger and anxiety among women and children in the region. She also observed that gender-based violence in the Niger Delta is deeply rooted in historical and ongoing conflicts over oil resources and ethnic tensions. “There is a prevalence of violence against women and girls including sexual violation and targeted killing made easy by poverty,” she stated.

Speaking on the topic: “Conflict, Climate Change and Niger Delta Women” Meju, who is also Chairperson, Centre for Environment Human Rights and Development, CEHRD, tasked governors in states of the Niger Delta region to domesticate and implement the National Gender Policy and the National Climate Action Plan, in order to address current challenges from conflict and climate change, which she said is impacting on women and children in the region.

“In communities like Erema, Ibaa, Obelle, Rumuekpe, Ke, women live in fear of molestation, losing their livestock and farm produce to the bad boys (hoodlums). In addition to the internal struggle with the aggrieved but misguided youth, the women also face molestation from herdsmen who, driven by harsh dry weather conditions up north, moved down south in search of green pasture for their cattle. With no regulations or rules to guide them, they infiltrate the forests and farmlands, rape women, kidnap them and uproot their crops to feed their cattle. Going to the farm has thus become a hazardous practice forcing some to abandon farming while those who still dare, only do so in groups.

“In the month of May 2024, after many months of complaints against the activities of the herders by the Eleme women without any action from their leaders, a woman was kidnapped and raped. She ended up in the hospital after being held hostage in the den of the kidnappers.

“Another young lady of 34 on her way back from the farm in Eleme area, was kidnaped by herders and their cohorts and held in the forest for three weeks and one day. It is no longer news that frustrated by constant molestation by herders who kidnap and kill their farmers, a community in Edo State set up a vigilante team that while conducting a search, apprehended a truck of men with arms and subsequently killed them causing an uproar in the country.

“Bayelsa State women also experienced a similar fate under the Seriake Dickson administration in addition to countless incidents of vandalization of their crops. The ugly reports have not ceased. In January 2024, a visit to Ndokwa East, Delta State revealed the harrowing effect of the presence of the herders in their environment. Some have experienced repeated destruction of their farms by the herders and their cattle with no solution in sight. Although some State governments have promulgated laws against open grazing, no one is making effort to put that law into effect. The women keep losing on all sides,” she stated..

The environmental advocate also lamented the impact of pollution that has further worsened the living conditions of women in communities of the region. She said; “The rich mangroves that decorate the waterways, were breeding grounds for sea foods including periwinkles, oysters, water snails, and the rivers had an unrivalled presence of fishes, crayfish and prawns, giving the region the privilege of having many special dishes like, fisherman soup, native soup, pepper soup, atama, efere, banga soup, kekefie, etc.

“The land itself, a rich vegetation was very productive which made it easy for women, the main farmers, to grow enough food to feed their families and take care of other needs including health and education. The trees and rich plantain plantations, provided food for large sized snails and their herbs came from the rich forest.

“All that has changed as constant oil pollution continues to degrade the land making it unproductive with little, sometimes, no yield while, wild plants like the water hyacinth and Palma trees takeover.

“The resultant hunger and poverty have caused women anxiety and lack of control of their sons with a large number resorting to violent and illicit ways of making money backed by high unemployment. A largely young male populated region, youths from the Niger Delta are more in the unemployment bracket for which reason, many have embraced illegal oil refining with a good number dead or maimed, some took to kidnapping, ritual killing, cybercrimes (yahoo) with drug abuse high in the region, thus, posing serious danger to women and girls. Consequently, there is a huge rate of gender based violence. The girls too, are forced by prevailing conditions, to turn to prostitution.”

Meju mentioned that climate change and unpredicted weather conditions have also affected farming season in the region, which has contributed to hunger among poor families. She said: In October, under normal conditions, we would be expecting the raining season to be coming to an end and harvests to be taking place but with erratic rainfalls, there is confusion in the farming calendar with flood ongoing about this time in most communities by the Niger Delta river bank in Bayelsa, Delta, Edo and Rivers Sate, especially, submerged in water. Agricultural services are suspended, as farmlands, crops and even homes are submerged in water while the floods last. In 2024, a flash rain in November caused heavy damage in Port Harcourt. The affected are still counting their losses. For communities in Onelga, Rivers State, parts of Bayelsa, Edo, the flood did come as predicted though damage was not colossal.”

She pointed out that a good number of families rendered homeless by the 2012, 2021 floods are still squatting while living in apprehension of further floods. She continued: “With no assured knowledge of when to expect the rain, planting season is difficult to determine and this affects the way and number of those who farm as well as their yield. For women still trying to overcome the high negative impact of COVID-19, it becomes a triple tragedy coping with the challenges before them.

“Many are finding it extremely difficult to feed since flooding causes them to hurriedly harvest prematurely or abandon what is in the soil to the raging water and with no saving, it becomes increasingly impossible for them to feed or live within the $1.9 average projected for Nigerians. A lot of them live at the mercy of crumbs coming as donations from relatives, friends and sometimes, churches in the cities,” she stated.

She, therefore, called for improvement on the state of agriculture in the region through the declaration of a state of emergency on security to make it safe for a return to agriculture and invest, safety on the waterways for women traders

“It has been established from presentations and dialogues from varied Niger Delta fora, including this our great Assembly, that until the lot of women change, sustainable development in the region will not be feasible. Our women are going through thick and thin to keep afloat the challenges of the harsh conditions they face,” Meju added.

Executive Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation HOMEF, Dr Nnimmo Bassey posited that a resilient future cannot be built without first addressing issues of environmental pollution and justice in the Niger Delta region.

Bassey who delivered the Keynote Address on the theme of the Conference: “Building a Resilient Future: Climate Action & Community Empowerment”, lamented that the Niger Delta is a territory that the inhabitants are literally the living dead due to horrific environmental degradation.

“The Niger Delta is a sacrifice zone where anything goes and the people just manage and struggle to survive. Those of us who live in the area don’t have to be told about the level of pollution here. The reports are there, the Ogoni report, the Bayelsa report, even the Niger Delta Environment Survey that Shell commissioned in the 90s, but never released, and many others including the one by Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Center, which studied blood samples of women from Otuabagi area, and found them all loaded with hydrocarbons. people are literally the walking dead,” he stated.

Bassey stated that “When we speak of building a resilient future, we have to look at the environment in which we live and examine the state of that environment. What are the living conditions for humans and other beings that we share the planet with? The Niger Delta is a deeply polluted environment, a deeply degraded territory, one of the worst polluted places on the planet.”

In profering solutions to a resilient future, the foremost environmentalist, emphasised environmental audit across the entire Niger Delta, halt to gas flaring and assets divestment by oil multintionals, cleanup and remediation, intergenerational justice, and the people must be allowed to take charge of their extractive resources, amongst others.

“Number one, there has to be a clear environmental audit across the entire Niger Delta, what has gone wrong? Who is responsible, and how can people live in that kind of society? Environment number two, health audit. What has been killing our people?

‘How come we don’t have adults? Children have become adults and we don’t have elderly people. Number three, remediation, we’re not only going to audit the environment, or did the health. There must be a cleanup of the entire Niger Delta. There must be reparations. There must be payment for the damage that has been done to lives and to the environment.

“Gas flaring must be stopped and halted. It’s an illegal activity. It’s a crime against humanity. It’s crime against the environment, against Mother Earth. It must be stopped. The so called divestment must be stopped and reversed, it is time to empower the communities and take real climate action by bringing into play community control, renewable energy provision, supporting food sovereignty, building resilient infrastructure. Still speaking about building resilience through climate reparations, it’s a time to right the wrongs in terms of energy provision.

“Niger Delta is a very challenged environment, and electricity penetration is very low, and so to reach hard to reach communities, there must be community controlled renewable energy. In other words, we have to bring energy democracy to the Niger Delta, so that the people who only see glimpses of light from gas flares would now have electricity with which to engage in productive activities and to light up the territory. Now, the land, the water and the air has been so contaminated, if gas flaring is stopped, pollution is cleaned up, then the people have a chance to engage in agriculture in a way that is resilient and a way that helps tackle global warming, and that would be having food sovereignty with a key focus on agroecology, cultivating crops according in line and in harmony with nature.

“And then finally, one clear action that must be taken to build resilience is to encourage community democracy and have community development agencies that are truly driven by the people and not manipulated through divide and rule and rule system by either the oil corporations or the governments at various levels. And so we’re speaking about community agency the people must be on the driving seat to build a resilient future, to take real climate action and to empower themselves the people are going to empower themselves when the conditions are right, and this starts by building social cohesion and resilience through inclusive approaches to resource management, accountability and ownership, communities must be in a position say this cannot happen in our territory. This can happen in our territory. They must be in charge of what resources are extracted in their territories and how these are extracted. And finally, we have to work to promote restorative justice.

“In other words, community in Agile data can only be empowered and build resilient future when there is environmental justice. Those who do the harm the most harm must do the most to write those harms, to correct those harms. They have to pay for the harms done. We need ecological justice. We need species justice where we understand that we are not alone on this planet. We’re not alone in Niger, there are other beings that we share the environment with, and they must be intergenerational justice. We have to keep in mind that the future we’re talking about belongs to the children yet unborn, and so what we do now must be such as would ensure that they can they’ll have a repaired resilience, strong ecosystems, ecology, systems, a week to thrive. These are some of the, these are the thoughts,” Bassey stated.

In his welcome address on Monday, Executive Director of Lekeh Development Foundation, Friday Mbani stated that the theme of the Conference, “Building a Resilient Future: Integrating Climate Action and Community Empowerment for the Niger Delta”, is a collective mission to path a course for resilient future for the the Niger Delta people.

Mbani mentioned that any climate response that does not empower our communities, honor our indigenous knowledge, and put people at the center, is incomplete.

‘We are all gathered here today in a time of deep urgency. The climate crisis is no longer knocking at our doors — it has broken through. It has flooded our homes, poisoned our waters, destroyed our farmlands, and threatened our very way of life. And yet, in the face of this crisis, I see something powerful. I see hope. I see resolution. I see YOU — all of you — who have gathered here today not to talk about problems, but to forge solutions,” he said.

Mbani emphasised that laws and policies geared towards environmental protection must be implemented to save the livelihoods of the people and thanked both sponsors and participants at the event.

“Here in the Niger Delta, we do not need to be told what climate change looks like. We lived in it. We feel it. But we also know how to fight it. We have communities rich in traditional knowledge. We have youth brimming with innovation. We have women who, despite the odds, continue to lead in adaptation and resilience. We have voices that must no longer be ignored.

“We cannot build resilience with policies that remain on paper. We cannot protect our environment while our people go hungry. We cannot talk about sustainability without justice — environmental justice, economic justice, and intergenerational justice. Let this week be one of truth-telling and bridge-building week for all. Let it be one of bold ideas and even bolder action. And most of all, let it be a reminder that climate resilience begins at the grassroots — in our towns, our villages, our families,” Mbani stated.

Princess Umoh Ayi, an environmentalist and Volunteer at The Neo Child Initiative, on her part linked the impact of climate change on plant health to humans. She stated that if climate change affects plants then it also affects humans. “If you are planting, plant things that are good to your health, if you are eating, eat things that are good for your health,” she stated.

Highpoint at the event was a melo drama of the impacts of climate change, flooding and conflicts on food and the corruption that goes on in the Nigeria’s oil and gas sector and as well a presentation and march for support of agro-forestry and end to fossil fuels and pollution of the Niger Delta environment by participants.