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Tag: Nnimmo Bassey

  • Experts rue rising pollution in Niger Delta, blame criminal neglect

    Experts rue rising pollution in Niger Delta, blame criminal neglect

    A renowned environmentalist, Dr. Nnimmo Bassey, has stated that when the environment is eroded, life expectancy is also eroded.

    He revealed that the main promoters of the environmental evils, some of them were not Nigerians, but corporations that came from elsewhere, while declaring that the terrible things, including environmental degradation and pollution, that they had been doing in Nigeria in over seventy years of crude oil and gas exploration and exploitation, they could not do them in their home countries.

    Bassey, the Executive Director of Benin-based ecological think-tank organisation, the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), expressed displeasure that the environment was eating Niger Deltans through pollution and criminal neglect.

    The environmental activist, writer and poet spoke yesterday in the Edo State capital at HOMEF’s event, tagged: “Poetry Day With Prof. Tanure Ojaide on Environment and Culture.”

    The erudite scholar (Ojaide), an Urhobo from Delta state of Nigeria, teaches at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, a public research university in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States.

    The colourful event was also attended by many senior academics and numerous undergraduate and post-graduate students from the nearby University of Benin (UNIBEN), Benson Idahosa University (BIU), Benin, and other higher institutions in the Edo State capital and its environs.

    Bassey said: “We live in an environment today which is so bastardised. In fact, our environment is eating our people. A lot of diseases we say are caused by witches and wizards are caused by environmental pollution. Sometimes, we tend to accommodate pollution.

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    “Environmental protection includes the fact that species depletion, environmental destruction and degradation lead to perpetration of poverty, as the lives of the people are also degraded.

    “Pollution, social marginalisation and environmental degradation are all forms of genocide and ecocide. Nature is not a machine. We are part of nature. The best way we can achieve environmental sustainability in Nigeria and Africa is by integrating our local knowledge and practices, which means that we have to define development, progress and growth in our own terms.

     The global definition at the moment has driven the world to a brink, which is why everything is so broken and damaged.”

    The eminent environmentalist also described pollution as an outcome and a problem of ‘development’ and ‘growth,’ while declaring that the end should now come to the criminal neglect of the Niger Delta.

    He said: “The polluters should be repentant and become penitent. If they do that, redemption is possible, but then, we must all stand firm and ask that all the persons that have damaged our environment should make reparations for all the destruction. The polluters should be held to account, particularly to pay reparations, not just polluter pays.

  • Human activities threaten ocean health, expert urges collaborative effort for sustainability

    Human activities threaten ocean health, expert urges collaborative effort for sustainability

    Community leaders, scientists and activists have called for protection of Nigeria’s oceans from increasing exploitation and ecological degradation.

    In an opening address, environmental activist and Convener of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Nnimmo Bassey, highlighted the dire state of the nation’s coastal ecosystems, emphasising that the ocean must not be seen as a commodity for profit but as a vital common good that sustains life, culture, and spirituality. 

    “Our oceans are under siege, and the communities that depend on them bear the brunt of pollution, displacement, and human rights abuses,” Bassey stated.

    Across Nigeria’s coastline, many communities are suffering the consequences of laxly regulated resource extraction.

    “The economic forces driving this destruction prioritize profit over people,” Bassey said, pointing to the environmental devastation caused by oil spills, dredging, and corporate fishing. He named several disaster sites, including the Ororo Oil Well 1 in Ondo State, where an oil inferno has been burning for almost five years, contributing to a worsening climate crisis.

    The workshop also shone a light on the plight of fishermen and women, who face diminishing catches as their waters are increasingly taken over by industrial interests. Bassey shared the heartbreaking story of Aiyetoro, a once-thriving community now threatened by rising sea levels and global warming, with fears of displacement looming unless urgent action is taken.

    “Governments must act as stewards of the environment, ensuring that decisions about natural resources include the participation of those who rely on them,” he urged. While Nigeria has signed international agreements to protect marine ecosystems, Bassey questioned the effectiveness of these measures, citing the destruction of protected areas and the privatization of public resources.

    Director of the Nigerian Institute of Oceanography and Marine Ocean Institute, 

    Dr. Patience Obatola,raised the alarm over the damaging effects of human activities on the ocean. 

    Obatola warned that these actions have caused the ocean to become increasingly destructive, posing significant risks to coastal communities and marine life.

    The director emphasised the urgent need for a more sustainable approach to ocean management. 

    The event, which coincides with International Wetlands Day, ended on a call for urgent action. “Let us seize this moment to build a future where our oceans are protected, our rights are upheld, and our communities thrive,” Bassey concluded, calling for unity among scientists, policymakers, and activists to secure a sustainable future for Nigeria’s coastal regions.

    One of the workshop’s key discussions centered on the threat posed by land reclamation projects, which are often presented as urban development but, in reality, involve the conversion and grabbing of vital aquatic ecosystems. “These developments disregard the vital role the ocean plays in regulating our climate and sustaining life on Earth,” Bassey warned.

  • ‘GMO crops don’t produce more than conventional ones’

    ‘GMO crops don’t produce more than conventional ones’

    Environmentalist, Nnimmo Bassey, has faulted claim by promoters of Genetically-Modified Organism (GMO) that GMO crops produce more than non-modified ones.

    Bassey, executive director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), spoke in Benin at a festival organised by HOMEF to celebrate Nigeria’s foods, cultural diversity, and biodiversity.

    He described GMO as a plant, animal or microbe in which one or more changes had been made to the genome, typically using high-tech genetic engineering.

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    Bassey, who expressed concern over push for GMO foods into Nigeria, insisted HOMEF was opposed to GMO foods in the country.

    He said: “GMOs do not produce more than conventional or non-modified crops. GMOs are not as healthy as they are not natural.

    “We will continue our campaign against GMO, because those who are promoting it are all concerned about money, and the profit.

    “A festival of this nature is an avenue to display our culture, through our food. Our foods are being threatened…”

    Chairman of Local Organising Committee Joyce Brown, HOMEF’s Programme director, in her welcome address, said the event was aimed at celebrating the diversity of Nigeria’s foods.

    Brown called on governments to halt decisions that could threaten local foods.

  • GMO crops not better than organic crops -Bassey

    GMO crops not better than organic crops -Bassey

    A renowned environmentalist, Dr. Nnimmo Bassey, has faulted the claim of the promoters of Genetically-Modified Organism (GMO) that GMO crops produce more than the conventional or non-modified ones.

    Bassey, who is also the Executive Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), spoke in Benin at a national convergence and food festival organised by HOMEF to celebrate Nigeria’s local foods, cultural diversity, and rich biodiversity.

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    He described GMO as a plant, animal or microbe in which one or more changes had been made to the genome, typically using high-tech genetic engineering, in an attempt to alter the characteristics of an organism.

    The environmentalist, who expressed concern over the push for GMO foods into Nigeria, and how the existence of the nation’s local foods were being threatened, insisted that HOMEF was opposed to GMO foods in the country.

  • JUST IN: Environmentalist Nnimmo Bassey wins 2024 Wallenberg Medal

    JUST IN: Environmentalist Nnimmo Bassey wins 2024 Wallenberg Medal

    The University of Michigan in the United States of America has announced Nigerian environmental leader, architect and poet, Nnimmo Bassey as the recipient of the prestigious 2024 Wallenberg Medal.

    Bassey, the executive director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, will become the first Nigerian and the fifth African to receive such an honour, following in the footsteps of Helen Suzman and Archbishop Desmond Tutu from South Africa, Paul Rusesabagina from Rwanda, and Denis Mukwege from the Congo.

    The Wallenberg Medal is awarded to outstanding humanitarians whose dedicated efforts on behalf of the vulnerable and oppressed mirror the heroic commitment and sacrifice demonstrated by Raoul Wallenberg.

    Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, saved tens of thousands of Jews in Budapest during the final months of World War II.

    Previous recipients of the award include the 14th Dalai Lama, Romanian American Nobel Laurette and holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel; American politician and civil rights activist John Robert Lewis and Burmese Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, among others.

    Bassey will receive the Wallenberg Medal as the 30th global recipient and deliver the Wallenberg Lecture on September 10 in Ann Arbor City, Michigan.

    The university, in a statement, said event details would be announced in the coming months.

    Apart from being a director of the ecological think-tank and a multiple award winner, Bassey is also a member of the steering committee of Oilwatch International, a network resisting the expansion of fossil fuel extraction in the Global South.

    He chaired Friends of the Earth International (2008-2012), was a co-recipient of the 2010 Right Livelihood Award, also known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize,” and received the Rafto Human Rights Prize in 2012.

    Bassey received honorary doctorate degrees from the University of York (UK) in 2019 and from York University (Canada) in 2023. Bassey’s books include To Cook a Continent: Destructive Extraction and The Climate Crisis in Africa and Oil Politics: Echoes of Ecological War. His poetry collections include “We Thought It Was Oil But It Was Blood (1998), I Will Not Dance to Your Beat (2010), and I See the Invisible (2024).”

    “As an architect, poet, writer, and human rights advocate, Nnimmo Bassey works to address root cause issues driving climate migration, environmental and social impacts of extractive production, and hunger in the Niger Delta.

    “His commitment to socio-ecological justice connects large-scale issues of climate change, exploitation of natural resources, and political/corporate intransigence to the lives of individuals in the Niger Delta and beyond,” said Sioban Harlow, Professor Emerita of Epidemiology and Global Public Health and chair of the Wallenberg Medal Executive Committee.

    “Just as Raoul Wallenberg trained as an architect at the University of Michigan before bringing his multifaceted skills to humanitarian work, Bassey’s background as an architect undergirds his environmental leadership.”

    Read Also: A bash for Nnimmo Bassey at 60

    According to the organisers, the Wallenberg Medal and Lecture ceremony “is free and open to the public. Tickets are not required. Please direct any inquiries about the event and requests for event accessibility accommodations to wallenberglecture@umich.edu or 734-936-3973.”

    Meanwhile, Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) has congratulated, Bassey on the well-deserved recognition.

    Akinbode Oluwafemi, Executive Director of CAPPA, said: “This award is yet another proof of Dr. Nnimmo Bassey’s phenomenal impact and global excellence. CAPPA, together with a long list of environmental advocates in Nigeria, Africa, and around the world, is excited to celebrate this recognition. We doubly testify of Dr. Bassey’s pristine work and relentless pursuit of environmental justice and accountability, even in the face of formidable challenges.”

  • A bash for Nnimmo Bassey at 60

    Centre for Children’s Health Education, Orientation and Protection (CEE-HOPE), a Lagos-based non-profit organisation, has honoured  foremost environmentalist   Rev. Nnimmo Bassey on his 60th birthday.

    The event, which held at the International Press Centre (IPC), Ogba, Lagos, preceded the inauguration of a community centre, which is also the organisation’s office in Makoko slum of Lagos.

    Earlier, participants took turns to eulogise  Rev Bassey, an architect, writer and co-founder of the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, who runs the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF).

    Online Editor of The Nation and board member, CEE-HOPE, Mr. Lekan Otufodunrin, eulogised the celebrant, appreciating him for the mentorship and support for the organisation.

    “It is one thing to have a vision and it is another thing to have passion, but you also need help. We really appreciate the support Rev. Bassey has given to CEE-HOPE. So many advocacies are going on around the world and we thank you for all you are doing,” Otufodunrin said.

    Betty Abah, executive director of CEE-HOPE and the organiser of the event, said Rev Bassey deserved  to be celebrated for being an exemplary Nigerian, a quintessential boss who has supported the CEE-HOPE vision in the last four years plus.

    ‘’We are celebrating a man of integrity and unflinching principles, a scholar, a workaholic and genius from whom we have a lot to learn and I am very privileged to have worked under him for over six years,’’ she said.

    Abah recounted how, on June 11, former and current members of the staff and some family members gave Bassey a surprise birthday party in Abuja, which brought together activists, government officials and other personalities. Among the guests, she said, were his old and former staff members from ERA, some dating back to 20 years.

    The guests at the event included members of ERA, including its Deputy Executive Director, Akinbode Oluwafemi, Tunji Buhari, and Veronica  Ivoke.

    Oluwafemi said he had been motivated by Rev Bassey, who he learnt activism from many years ago.

    “Rev Bassey is our teacher, our mentor and we have learnt activism from him. He led us into activism even when some of us didn’t know that what we were doing was activism, but he taught us. Rev Bassey taught me humility. I know what humility means. I saw it in him. I have learnt a lot from him,” he said.

    Rev. Bassey was full of appreciation at the event, which he said, was a surprise to him. He said: “I grew up in the village where even my parents didn’t know their birthdays and I never celebrated my birthday. I’m committed to work more with young people. I am very humbled.”

    Talking to students from Makoko who graced the occasion, Rev Bassey told them how lucky they were to belong to this generation.

    “Every generation always feels their generation is better. Things may be tough but the world is getting better. When I was a young man, to make a phone call you would go and line up in NITEL office or you would tell your neighbor who had a telephone line that you were coming to receive a call by 4pm. But today every family has a phone,” he said, commending young people on their tech savvy nature.

    The celebration train later moved to Makoko, where both local chief and young people trooped out in their hundreds to welcome Bassey. Four different dance troupes consisting of young people entertained him, some with songs composed specifically in his honour. They sang and danced in indigenous Egun and Ilaje languages backed by drums, native costumes and other traditional symbols.

    Nnimmo promised continued support for the community. He presented educational scholarship funds to 10 Makoko children, promising to increase the number to 20 next year, after declaring open the CEE-HOPE Community Empowerment Centre.

    The community, in appreciation, presented a mini-boat to Nnimmo, also in celebration of his birthday.

    It was a crowning glory for the Benin City-based, Akwa Ibom State-born activist, one of the activists who took the Niger Delta cause to global platforms. Bassey’s work has attracted recognitions from across the world. He was recognised by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential Persons in the World in 2009 and Goodluck Jonathan Government honoured him with a National Award. In 2010, he was recognised as a ‘Right Livelihoods Award winner, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize. He is the first black man to head Friends of the Earth, an international group of 74 countries, as chairman, and serving two terms.

  • We have developed framework, timeline towards Ogoniland clean-up – Minister

    Says contractors will move to site by September

     

    The Minister of Environment, Ibrahim Jibril on Monday disclosed that plans have reached an advanced stage for the remediation exercise of the Ogoniland.

    Jibril said a framework and timeline for the clean-up exercise have been developed among other scheduled activities to December 2019.

    The Minister spoke during a national colloquium organised to celebrate 60 years birthday of Arc. Nnimmo Bassey in Abuja. It was themed: Environmental Conflicts and the Quest for National Identity.

    The Minister, who acknowledged impact of environmental pollution in the Niger Delta region stated contractors will move to site by September.

    He state that fishes are being destroyed, farmlands and the entire ecosystem largely affected.

    According to him, he had a change of perception during his visit on February 2016 to the region during a spill at the forcado.

    However, he restated commitment of the current administration to realising the clean-up exercise.

    Jibril noted that the current administration has no option except to do the clean-up exercise.

    He emphasized significant of the remediation saying it became imperative for the sake of the polluted communities.

    “One single trip in February 2016 in the forcados when there was a spill changed my entire perception about pollution in the region. I used to see fish fried with vegetable oil but by my trip that day made me see fish fried with crude oil. This has changed my opinion.  If you allow environmental issues to persist, it will destroy the ecosystem.

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    “But we are determined to right the wrong. It is a promise made by the President.

    “We have developed a framework and close timeline that will take us to December 2019. The problem we are facing and we need Nnimmo to support is that people have been agitating for over 40 Years. A lot of promises have been made and not kept to the extent that they could not believe who will do the right thing anymore.”

    He added that, “We have already advertised and gotten 400 companies. 284 are local and 60 are foreign. Assessments are ongoing and we have delineated about 14 sites as at last week from 26. They have been handled over to the Consultants.

    “On the technical aspects, we have gotten 162 companies and nine of them are foreign who have qualified to the next stage. We intend to move to site and follow up by September.

    “We are under severe pressure to perform. We need to do it for the sake of our people.We have no option than to do the cleanup.”

    He prayed for the celebrant to witness another 60 years.

    In his citation read by Mrs. Bunmi Dipo-Salami, revealed how Bassey emerged Co-founder of Environmental Rights Action and led the advocacy group for over 20 years campaigning for environmental safety.

    He was applauded for his commitment to protecting the ecosystem and advocating for environmental justice.

  • A forgotten source

    A forgotten source

    •Oloibiri’s neglect is part of the neglect of history, including in schools

    It is possible that not many Nigerians have heard of Oloibiri before; even of those who have, not many know its historical or economic importance. Curiously, in Nigeria, that is not new. A few years ago, some pupils in a primary school in Ikenne, Ogun State, the birthplace of the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, knew next-to-nothing about the man, Obafemi Awolowo. When they were asked whether they knew anyone by that name, they said no.

    The only Obafemi they know is the football star, Obafemi Martins! The fault is not in them, it is in our warped educational curriculum that has relegated such persons and places of rich historical value in the country to the background. It is also because we no longer teach history to our children in primary and secondary schools.

    Oloibiri, in Ogbia Local Government Area (LGA) of Bayelsa State; came into prominence with the discovery of crude oil in commercial quantities in the place in 1956. This discovery ended a 50-year fruitless search for oil in Nigeria and launched the country into the limelight of oil-producing nations, with the attendant petro-dollars.

    An appreciative country ought to accord Oloibiri the attention befitting such a community. Unfortunately, Oloibiri’s tale is like that of other oil-bearing communities in the country. At least that is the impression one gets if Chief Amangi Daniel’s claim is anything to go by. Daniel had regretted that in spite of the community’s peaceful nature that made oil production uninterrupted for years, development has eluded it. He told the visiting Mr Jay Naidoo, a former Minister of Development in South Africa in Ogbia that it was regrettable that “the area has nothing to show for its historic role in the nation’s economy’’.

    Naidoo said that he was in Nigeria to see and feel the pulse of the Niger Delta communities as well as assess the level of development in the region. Like most other visitors to the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, he too was disappointed not just by what he was told but also by what he saw. Even the renowned environmentalist, Mr Nnimmo Bassey and the Country Director of Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, Mr Larry Umunna, who accompanied Mr Naidoo must have been equally flabbergasted by the eye saw that the community has become.

    Indeed, Naido was so disappointed that he recommended that “the communities should organise and seek further assistance from the United Nations as well as draw the attention of shareholders of oil multinational firms to the negative impact of their operations on the people.” We agree with this view even as we also support the position of Mr Basssey that it is imperative that not just Oloibiri but the entire Niger Delta region must be cleared of the relics and pollution associated with oil exploration that are evident in the communities. However, unlike his view that the government integrates environmental issues into political discourse, we want to suggest, based on experience, that it should not be left to the government alone.

    As Chief Daniel told the visitors, our governments are usually tall in speaking but miserably short in action. Most of the promises that successive governments made to better the lot of Oloibiri community have remained largely unfulfilled. Therefore, it is the civil society and the communities themselves that should ensure that their plight is brought to the front burner of national discourse. They should even externalise it if necessary. If successive governments had been responsible and fair to the oil-bearing communities, things should have improved in those areas since the days of Isaac Boro and the late Ken Saro-Wiwa.

    In the particular case of Oloibiri, it should not just be developed; the community should be made a tourist attraction to serve as eternal reminder of its importance to the country’s development. If we got so much from Oloibiri, the least we can do is to give back to it part of what we took from it. That is what corporate social responsibility is all about.

  • Delay on UNEP report criminal, groups tells FG

    Civil society groups yesterday described the inability of the federal government to start the immediate implementation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report on oil devastated Ogoniland in Rivers State as criminal.

    The groups, Ogoni Solidarity Movement (OSF), Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Social Action and Right Livelihood Award Foundation said the federal government with its lukewarm response to the UNEP report is unfair to the Ogoni people.

    Speaking during a summit in Port Harcourt, the Executive Director of HOMEF, Rev. Nnimmo Bassey, alleged that while people are dying on a daily basis in Ogoni, the government has refused to give the matter the attention it deserves.

    He urged the people of Ogoni to rise to the challenge and take their rightful position by using all manner of strategies to confront the federal government.

    Bassey said, “It is an act of criminality that the people’s livelihood is gone and the federal government has been adamant in implementing the UNEP report. It is unfair that they have failed to consider the plight of the people.

    “Shell does not keep to standards, and it will be difficult to clean Ogoni communities if no serious action is taken to force the Federal Government to begin action.”

    The Leader of Ogoni Solidarity Forum, Mr. Celestine Akpobari, said with the level of deaths being recorded in Ogoni due to the polluted environment, the implementation of UNEP report has become imperative.