The Bayelsa report revealed an astonishing level of ecological damage in the state. It reports that the state has suffered a per capita pollution of 1.5 barrels and that water bodies have total hydrocarbon contamination of up to one million times above safe limits. A snippet from the report helps here:

‘The historic and continued activities of the oil industry have fueled an environmental emergency, a silent health crisis, and deep economic hardship. This overwhelming tide of oil contamination has turned the Niger Delta – home to some of the planet’s largest mangroves and freshwater swamps, forests, and Africa’s largest wetlands – into one of the most polluted places on Earth.

As much as 40 percent of the mangrove forests have been lost.The human impact has been just as devastating. One study estimates that in 2012 alone, oil spills in Nigeria, and predominantly in the Niger Delta resulted in over 16,000 additional neonatal deaths. Community after community has seen their livelihoods damaged by oil contamination.’

Environmental Damage Foretold
The environmental crisis in the world today has gone so deep that we can almost say that the world is facing a real possibility of massive ecological collapse.  This is not far-fetched because it is already known that available planetary resources cannot sustain the current rate of consumption. With the reality of peak oil has come the rise of extreme extraction. Humanity is working to show that resources and lifestyles can be sustained or stretched no matter the cost – even if it means scraping the bottom of the planet.

It is common knowledge that various sectors of the national economy have suffered gross neglect for decades. The environment has suffered special injury because the implications of certain aspects of the neglect are not immediately visible, as would for example the decay of infrastructures such as road buildings, water supplies and telecommunications.  Sometimes policy makers simply act as though they expect that the problems would disappear on their own. That has never happened to mountains of refuse. They don’t happen with polluted streams. They don’t happen with oil spills in waterways and farmlands. They don’t happen at the local or global levels.

A rough estimate of the amount of oil spills that have been experienced, and is still being experienced, has been out at about an equivalent to one Exxon Valdez spill per year for more than six decades. The Exxon Valdez spill occurred at Alaska in 1989. Several well blowouts have been recorded over the decades, including Texaco’s (Chevron) Funiwa5 well blowout of January 1980 which spilled 400,000 barrels of crude and another blowout and rig fire at the same field in January 2012. In recent years we have been witnesses to the AITEO well blowout at Nembe in November 2021 with an estimated 300,000 barrels of crude oil dumped into the environment and the explosion and sinking of an aged and unlicensed floating, storage and production vessel (FSPO Trinity) off the coast of Ondo State in February 2022. One largely ignored well blowout is the one at the Ororo-1 field. This well blow out occurred in April 2020 and has been burning and spilling crude non-stop for over two years now.[11]

The truth that we have only one Earth and the fact that our environment is deeply interconnected is being played out in the web of crises confronting the world today. They may appear not to be closely linked but a close look shows that there are strands revealing that they are held together by a clear logic. This logic pertains to reinforced fields of perception in which transactional actions have shut out the doors of transformational actions. Nature’s resources belong to nature. When humans term them “natural resources” the implication is that these resources occur naturally and can thus be grabbed or taken by the quickest, the strongest and the most brazen.

Resolving or at least tackling the endemic environmental problems requires that we critically review the root causes of some of these problems as well as the political filters through which we view them. Anything short of this means that we simply skirt the problems or at best tackle the symptoms while the problems fester and eventually develop into catastrophic proportions. Some policy makers, for example, consider the number one task of safeguarding the environment to be the demolition of so-called illegal structures and informal settlements, even though we know our cities cannot survive without them.

What Must be Done?
Declare a National Environmental Emergency, conduct a national environmental audit and establish a management plan, detoxify the Nigerian environment, remediate and restore all areas impacted by hydrocarbon pollution.

Ecological Funds should be strictly monitored and used to remediate or restore damaged environment. Massive reforestation programme across the nation, at least 10% of national budget set aside for number 2-5 mentioned above, coherence brought in between government structures to ensure convergence of efforts, stop gas flares. Invest in socialised and decentralised renewable energy systems.

Halt new oil concessions and install meters at appropriate points to determine outflows from flow stations, produce an annual State of Nigerian Environment Report to ensure that the issues are addressed and not ignored.

Conclusion
When it is said that the environment is our life, a significant implication is that we are all children of the universe. The sun remains the key source of energy for all creatures. For the survival of living creatures, the water cycle must not be broken. Breaking the vital cycles of nature has dire consequences for all living beings on the planet.

When we strive to defend the Nigerian environment, we are at the same time defending the global environment because we have only one Earth. The fact that we have one earth makes it urgent that we report environmental crimes as soon as they occur. We also must proactively work to ensure that these incidents do not happen. Where they do happen there should be systems of checking and enforcing rulings against environmental crimes including ecocide.

We have taken a broad look at the environmental challenges confronting us today. We applaud the Historical Society of Nigeria for its consistency over the years and particularly for creating a space for us to touch the environmental state of Nigeria. This is a major step seeing that the environment intersects everything about life. This occasion highlights the need to ensure that that we do not lose our environmental memory. We thank you for giving us the opportunity to be a part of this remembrance.
Concluded
Bassey, Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) at the 68th Conference/Congress of the Historical Society of Nigeria held in Lagos on 8-1 October 2023