Welcome words by Nnimmo Bassey, Director of HOMEF, at the 2nd Nigeria Socioecological Alternatives Convergence, held at Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja, on Monday, July 14, 2025
The fabric of the social and environmental conditions of Nigeria are literally stretched to the limit. The threats emanate from local and global strands of the polycrisis wracking the globe. Exploitation, displacements, conflicts, climate chaos, socioeconomic inequities combine to threaten the tenuous fabrics holding our nation and peoples together.
Desertification, deforestation, extreme water and air pollution, deadly floods, coastal and gully erosion, insecure farms and diverse ecological devastations all merit a declaration of national environmental security state of emergency? The widespread environmental challenges also provide clear platforms for collective work to salvage the situation in ways that political coalitions may not.
Waiting before acting is a luxury the people cannot afford. The clarion call for action is urgent and critically existential. This reality inspired the Nigeria Socioecological Alternatives Convergence (NSAC). Regrettably at this second outing the conditions remain dire. We remain undaunted because we understand that the struggle for the change we need cannot be a sprint because it has to be a comprehensive overhaul of a system entrenched by indifference and lack of accountability.
The socioecological alternatives we propagate must overturn the current predatory system of destructive extraction and shredded ecological safety nets. Our charter has to construct a Nigeria that is decolonial and post extractivist.
In the maiden national convergence, we collectively agreed to a national charter for socioecological justice. Even as we achieved that major milestone we had hopes that at a future date, we would have participants from other African countries. That future has come faster than we expected. At this convergence we have participants from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. We also have other international partners. The reality of having an African Socioecological Alternatives Convergence (ASAC) is drawing near.
There are sources to learn from in efforts to overhaul environmental governance in our nation.
- In Africa, Kenya and South Africa have constitutional provisions for environmental rights that we can learn from.
- The South American countries of Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela have constitutional provisions for the rights of Nature.
- The Rights of Nature includes the right for Nature to be free from pollution. It also places obligations on human at a number of levels. The Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth is yet to be universally adopted[1].
- There is a strong campaign for the recognition of ecocide as a crime in the Rome Statute in line with genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, etc.
- We already have outcomes of litigations as well as reports that show evidence of ecocide in Nigeria and these could back up the urgency of the crisis. Two of such reports are the UNEP Report (Environmental Assessment of Ogoni environment, 2011) and the Bayelsa State Oil and Environment Commission Report (Environmental Genocide, 2023).
- Delta State House of Assembly is working on a bill to recognise the personhood of River Ethiope. The 2014 National Confab had recommendations for justiciability of human and environmental rights
According to the NSAC Charter, “Our vision is of a Nigeria where ecological integrity, social justice, and economic wellbeing coexist. We must birth a Nigeria where the rights of nature are respected, where communities have control over their resources and enjoy resource democracy, and where everyone has access to clean air, water, and a healthy environment.”
The key demands of the NSAC Charter include:
- Access to water as a human right
- Recognise the Rights of Nature
- Inclusive policy development
- Just energy transition from a polluting and epileptic dirty energy model to renewable energy
- Job transitioning
- Transition to agroecology
- Ensure biosafety and biosecurity, ban genetically modified organisms
- Halt deforestation, promote reforestation
- Protect our wetlands and halt indiscriminate land reclamation
- Invest in flood control infrastructure
- Enforcement of mining regulations
- Decommissioning of mines and oil wells at end of life
- Compensations for job losses and reparations for ecological damage to affected communities
- Ecological audit – State of the Nigerian environment
- Environmental remediation
- Accessible and affordable clean energy. Energy democracy
- Revamped emergency response mechanisms
- Reject false solutions to climate change, including carbon offsets, geoengineering, etc
- Halt gas flaring
- Halt and reversal of divestments by IOCs
- Declare no mining zones
The environment supports our life and exploitation of nature’s gifts must be conducted in manners that do not disrupt or breach the cycles of nature. As part of nature, humans have responsibilities and obligations regarding how we interact with our environment and other beings we share the planet with. Human activities contribute to the squeezing we are experiencing from desertification in northern Nigeria and the erosion washing away our communities on the coastline.
Sixty-eight years of extraction of fossil fuels has rendered the Niger Delta a disaster zone. Climate impacts and environmental genocide leave festering sores on the territory. Uncontrolled solid mineral extraction is poking holes across the land, and these combined with long abandoned but non-decommissioned mines are scars that we cannot ignore.
Let us together “Yasunize” and “Ogonize” by demanding the protection of communities and territories with natural or cultural diversity against activities that cause serious environmental impacts, such as from oil and gas extraction, open cast mining, and other mega-projects. We must wake up and demand a change of mentality. Our leaders must Arise and be true compatriots, not lords or emperors, even if that anthem has been placed on the shelf. Oil for development has placed Nigeria on a treadmill surrounded by voracious and insatiable forces of exploitation, expropriation and extermination.
The major focus of this Convergence is “Examining Relevant National Policies and Frameworks for Addressing Environmental, Climate Change and Socio-ecological Challenges”.We have an erudite professor and climate change expert to set the tone for our deliberations. We look forward to learning about those critical planks for addressing the subject. We will also hear how the policies and frameworks which he has helped formulate and frame over the years are faring.
NSAC is a space for the convergence of ideas, sharing of wisdom and passion. We note the critical role of communities in nation building and believe that any nation that sidelines communities is on a very slippery slope. This is why we must do all we can to stand with our peoples, build cohesion for socioecological transformation and ensure communities are embedded as key players in defining the direction of a truly just energy and social transition. It is our collective space. It is our time.