By Faridat Salifu
The problem with extraction goes beyond oil, gas and minerals to the extraction of value from communities, knowledge, culture and relationships, Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Nnimmo Bassey, has warned.
Bassey spoke in Lagos on Tuesday at the EtiUwem School of Ecology, during a session themed “Commons, Care, and Community Energy Sovereignty: Anchoring Socio-ecological Transformation from Below.”
Speaking on “Commons in an Age of Extraction,” Bassey questioned why extraction and global warming have become normalised despite their consequences, saying fossil fuel dependence persists because of power, control and economic interests, not lack of alternatives.
He faulted arguments that African countries should continue using fossil fuels because the West industrialised through them, likening it to continuing to take from a buffet “when the table itself is already on fire.”
Tracing modern extraction to slavery, plantation agriculture and colonial trade, Bassey asked what happens when land, water, forests and human bodies are turned into commodities.
He described the commons as interconnected — including land, water, forests, seas, fish, knowledge, culture, language and the atmosphere — historically governed by access, restraint, reciprocity and responsibility, but now being enclosed and privatised. He cited the reclamation of parts of the Lagos coastline as an example of how spaces once linked to the commons are commodified beyond the reach of ordinary residents.
According to him, extraction also takes less visible forms such as cultural extraction, data mining, financial extraction, land grabbing and labour extraction.
Bassey called for stronger community and ecological rights, democratic local governance, protection of indigenous knowledge and language, recognition of care work, and a shift to economies based on sufficiency, solidarity and regeneration, alongside remediation and reparation for affected communities.
Other speakers built on his framing to warn that the energy transition could become a new extractivism if ownership structures remain unchanged.
Researcher with We the People, Ken Henshaw, said modern extractivism was rooted in colonial conquest where land, labour and production were reorganised for export, a pattern still visible where resources are local but decisions and profits are controlled elsewhere.
Associate Director at CAPPA, Ogunlade Olamide Martins, said the question is who captures value and who bears pollution, land degradation and health costs, warning that demand for critical minerals and land for renewables could drive new enclosures.
Lund University Professor, Vasna Ramasar, warned the transition could become neocolonialism without addressing power and ownership, citing community-based models like Peru’s Potato Park, Rojava and Cooperation Jackson.
CAPPA Executive Director, Akinbode Oluwafemi, said the politics of care must be central, noting that women, farmers, fishers and young people who sustain ecosystems through unpaid care work are often excluded from decisions on land and revenues. He called for a shift “from consultation to meaningful power.”
Venezuelan political ecologist, Emiliano Terán Mantovani, said the pressure is already visible in Latin America’s Lithium Triangle of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, where lithium mining is raising concerns over water consumption and community rights.
