BY SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Dr Nnimmo Bassey, Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF),
on Monday advocated environmental and health audits of pollution indexes in the oil-rich Niger Delta region.
Bassey, a renowned environmentalist who holds a national honours of Member of the Order of Federal Republic (MFR) made the call in his welcome remarks at Niger Delta Alternatives Convergence (NDAC) at the Banquet Hall, Government House, Yenagoa.
He urged oil firms to stop the deliberate systematic destruction of the Niger Delta region.
Bassey noted that the Niger Delta region has been treated as a sacrificial zone since in the early 1950s up until now.
The extreme negative impacts of oil and gas extraction as well as the massive deforestation and various kinds of erosion of both the land and coastlines
He called for stopping the deliberate and systemic destruction of the Niger Delta
The call is sequel to the report of the Bayelsa State Oil and Environment Commission (BSOEC) titled, “An Environmental Genocide: Counting the Human and Environmental Cost of Oil in Bayelsa, Nigeria.”
He noted that while the use of environmental genocide as the title of the report is unarguably weighty, and demands that the matter should not be treated with levity.
“As much as we are unhappy about the silence that has engulfed the report, we must applaud the government of Bayelsa for taking the steps, assembling a top-notch team of experts to drive the commission and to produce such an important report.
“Other states in the Niger Delta should toe the path set by Bayelsa. There is no time to dither on this,” Bassey noted.
On his part, King Bubaraye Dakolo, the Chairman Bayelsa Traditional Council, said that the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) is an anti-peoples legistlation which criminalizes communities and against the Niger Delta.
On the issues of the divestment by multinational companies, he emphasized that “we must have our environment restored before anybody takes a step.
“We owe a duty to hold them to account and that even if at the end of the day, they have to leave, there must be a clear programme for restoration of the environment.
“For over 70 years the oil firms has made a lot of money, in our environment, living the people to die in pains, despite the huge monies they have made in our environment,” he said.
In his presentation, Dr Isaac Osuoka, Coordinator, Social Action International, commended the organizing committee, and HOMEF, for the event.
He recalled that the first NDAC, which was held in Uyo in 2022, resulted in the adoption of the Niger Delta Manifesto for Socio-Ecological Justice.
A foundational and timely document reflecting the shared analysis and demands of our people. That Manifesto builds on over 30 years of heroic struggles by communities in the Niger Delta, from Umuechem to Ogoni, from Kaiama to Koluama.
“It is part of a longer lineage of resistance and proposal-making, rooted in the lived experiences of communities devastated by crude oil extraction and united by a desire for ecological and social justice.
“This phase of the Niger Delta struggle commenced around 1990. Let us recall the Umuechem Massacre of 1990, where a peaceful protest for environmental accountability led to state violence at the behest of Shell.
“The result was mass killings, destruction of a whole town, and an enduring trauma that still hangs over that community.
“Shortly thereafter, the Ogoni struggle, led by the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), gave the world the Ogoni Bill of Rights—a searing indictment of state and corporate violence and a visionary declaration.
“Ken Saro-Wiwa and his comrades understood that the Niger Delta was not only a site of extraction but also a site of erasure of livelihoods, of cultures, and of futures.
“In 1998, the Ijaw Youth Council issued the Kaiama Declaration and launched Operation Climate Change,” he said.
The event drew hundred of participants from key oil bearing communities across Bayelsa
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