By Faridat Salifu
Experts have called on the Federal Government to place workers and host communities at the centre of Nigeria’s climate and energy transition to avoid deepening inequality and injustice.
The call was made on Wednesday at a National Policy Dialogue in Abuja themed “Advancing a Just, Inclusive and Development-Oriented Transition in Nigeria: Lessons from the Energy, Forestry and Critical Minerals Sectors.”
The dialogue was organised by the Federal Ministry of Environment in partnership with the University of Bristol, Taraba State University, The British Academy and the Society for Planet and Prosperity.
Presenting a paper titled “The Global Political Economy of Just Transitions for and in Africa,” Prof. Chukwumerije Okereke of the British Academy Knowledge Frontiers Project outlined four justice principles that should guide Africa’s response.
He listed them as survivalist justice to protect livelihoods, sovereign justice to guarantee policy space and control over resources, developmentalist justice to expand industrialisation and energy access, and regenerative justice to repair ecological and social damage.
Okereke warned that Africa’s transition is being shaped by constrained fiscal space, rising sovereign debt, unilateralism in the Global North and a shift from the principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities to what he described as “Common to Common But Shifted Responsibility.”
He also criticised restrictions on fossil fuel use in Africa while consumption continues in developed countries, describing it as “gas for me and not for thee.”
Speaking on the political economy of energy transition, the National Coordinator of the Nigeria Labour Congress Climate Change, Green Jobs and Just Transition Programme, Comrade Eche Asuzu, said political and institutional forces determine who benefits and who bears losses in transition projects.
He warned that moving from a fossil-fuel to a low-carbon economy without attention to equity could create new forms of injustice.
Asuzu said host communities often feel excluded, citing cases where hundreds of trucks transport lithium from facilities operated by foreign companies while surrounding communities lack basic infrastructure.
“This is not justice,” he said, adding that Nigeria’s problem is not weak regulations but poor implementation and lack of follow-up.
He called for mandatory publication of Community Development Agreements on a public portal and for greater empowerment of communities to know their rights and hold companies accountable.
In an interview with journalists, Prof. Okereke said workers must be at the centre of just transition policies because most emissions occur in workplaces.
“Before it gets to the sky, it gets to the worker,” he said, noting that workers are on the frontline of pollution and emissions in the Niger Delta and other extractive sites.
He said trade unions must not be sidelined in climate discussions and called for social protection measures such as retraining, unemployment benefits and prompt payment of pensions for workers who may lose jobs in the transition.
