It took all the resolve Otto Canon could muster not to charge at the driver of the rickety bus in Kaiama, an Ijaw community Bayelsa State. It was a Thursday morning in December, 2015.
He had just completed his National Youth Service orientation course and was heading for a photo shoot in Yenagoa, when he ran into the driver emptying a sack of solid waste into a median on East-West Road.
“If I had my way that morning,” Otto Canon fumed, “I would arrest him, charge him to court even. I was wondering how a sane human being would open their eyes and dispose such waste on the expressway, without a care,” he told this reporter.
More than six years after that incident, that anger still rages on, like tidal waves sweeping across the face of the sea. But, unlike in 2015 where he nearly threw punches at the man whom he considered a threat to the environment, the 2014 Gulder Ultimate Search winner is channeling that energy at policy roundtables, climate chat groups, community forums and sustainability platforms advocating new approaches to securing the environment.
In the beginning was anger
In a larger sense, Otto Canon’s anger is justifiable. About 68% of the most extreme weather conditions within the last 20 years were made more severe by human-induced climate change, according to a study by Carbon Brief, a UK-based platform that covers development in climate science.
But not many Nigerians are abreast of these realties. If they do, the data is nothing more than some vanity statistics; something they have heard so much so that it loses its ability to inspire action. “For some people, climate change sounds like some fantasy tale, something alien. But it’s not. It’s like day and night. Climate change is here and now, and every day, we are reminded that there’s no hiding place if we don’t stem its tide,” he says.
Global reports on pollution alone place Nigeria in a frightening portion of the scale, with a myriad of diseases, floods and other environmental disasters as testament. But Otto Canon believes Nigerians need to adopt a new approach to the environment, prioritizing personal responsibility over expectations from government.
With some of the worst deforestation indices in the world, Nigeria loses about 450 to 600 hectares of its forests annually and makes desertification a battle far from being won. Otto recounted an encounter during his statutory national service where a paramount ruler in Bayelsa boasted that his state generates the largest amount of wood in Nigeria.
That statement, Otto recalled, left him furious and dumbfounded at the same time. “I was surprised because he did not mention a single effort to replace the trees or an awareness of the negative impact of that activity. To him, tree felling was a big achievement for the state. That incident reignited my passion to make an impact in that space.”
Ever since, Otto has leveraged his fame as winner of one of Nigeria’s biggest reality shows to lead campaigns that support conservation and climate action.
Enters Port Harcourt Tree Planting Festival
The impact of climate change presents some of the darkest hours in human history, and Nigeria is not insulated. Yet, poor environmental practices, like those of the driver at East-West Road and millions of Nigerians, are stifling modest efforts to conserve our space.
In 2018, Otto, along with 500 volunteers, launched the annual Port Harcourt Tree Planting Festival to drive mass action and mitigate climate change. At the maiden edition of the festival, about 1000 trees of various species were planted in strategic spots across the city. “The port Harcourt tree planting festival is a social Project organized by CleanCyclers in a bid to curb the effect of climate change and global warming and also restore the garden city of Nigeria,” he said.
He expressed concern that Port Harcourt, a Nigerian garden city once renowned for its greenery, has lost its glory owing to harmful environmental practices.
In 2018, the state governor, Nyesom Wike, said his administration was working hard to restore its Garden City status. To achieve that feat, the state is counting on the support of partners like CleanCyclers, a platform founded by Otto Canon only two years ago.
Through the platform, Otto Canon has worked with various partners to design and implement projects, especially in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta region with a history of pollution, that promote afforestation, clean climate and zero waste.
‘It’s environment or nothing’
Otto Canon’s foray into environmental activism appears predestined. “I was born into an amazing family where the father is a big lover of greeneries,” he says. That obviously rubbed off on the young man who was recently recognized by Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari and the Rivers State Government for his efforts at conserving the environment.
“I’m concerned about the attitude of our people to the environment. I have had people tell me to slow down, and that I can’t change the world. Yes, I’m not sure I can change the world, but I certainly can make an impact on the environment. And that has to happen now,” Otto Canon explains.
Otto’s efforts echo the global ambition by the United Nations under Goals 11, 13, 14 and 15 of its Sustainable Development Goals – from building sustainable cities to combating climate change, desertification, and promote blue economy.
If there’s anything that is more urgent today, according to Otto, it is adopting a new, sustainable approach to how people see or relate with the environment; a system that frowns at the driver on East-West Road from polluting the environment. The government can’t do it alone.