Nigeria is confronted with a number of critical ecological challenges that affect its population’s well-being. These challenges are caused by a number of factors, including a long history of reckless mineral extraction, unregulated and unplanned urbanisation and industrialization, poor policy development and implementation, and climate change. 

The struggles are connected from the Northeast to the Northwest to the Southsouth – from drought to desertification, flooding, deforestation and pollution. The issues are connected and the solutions will lie in the identification of the interconnection – realising that we have been working in silos and the resultant problem of misinformation and disinformation by corporate and government actors which has birthed the introduction of false narratives and solutions.

Concerned with the weight of burden of impacts on communities and the need for urgent actions, the ecological think tank and advocacy organization, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) birthed the Nigeria Socioecological Alternatives Convergence (NSAC) as a space for national conversations around the existential issues and galvanize actions to address them. The NSAC started with a preliminary meeting of thirteen (13) experts on flooding, water crises, deforestation, drought, mining, oil and gas, and climate change. The experts were drawn from different states in Nigeria including Akwa Ibom, Kano, Abuja, Lagos, Delta, Bayelsa, Edo and Cross River – to articulate the issues towards developing a National Charter. This meeting took place in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State over two day from 23rd to 24th of April 2024. 

The maiden session of the Nigeria Socioecological Alternatives Convergence (NSAC) held in Abuja on the 20th of June 2024. Participants included community people from extractive communities from Nasarawa, Abuja, Lagos, Rivers, Bayelsa, Kaduna, Niger, Benue States; CSOs, academics, ethic nationalities and leaders of sociocultural groups including women. This meeting culminated in the adoption of a national advocacy document: The Nigeria Socio-Ecological Alternatives Charter – A Call to Action. The Charter emphasises – ecological justice, peoples participation, sustain-ability, accountability, solidarity and partnership, as its core principles.

The Director of the ecological think tank and advocacy organization, Nnimmo Bassey in his welcome address titled: Time is Running Out: Imperatives of an Alternative Nigeria Socio-Ecological Agenda exposed the environmental crimes and human rights abuses happening in extractive communities all over the country. According to him, mining presents critical problems across the whole nation at this time – mostly because it is an area that is not regulated and open for all comers and provide cover for those who wants to grab our territories.
On impacts faced by communities, he noted that the state and federal governments are undisturbed by the negative impacts that plague communities. The eleven frontier states of the north are exposed to increasing drought and desertification that affect fishing, farming and other livelihood and driving the poverty margin down the ladder with attendant displacement and conflicts.

Floods have become normal in Nigeria. Warnings are given but no preparations for responses – so, Nigerian loss their properties annually to these avoidable disasters -he reiterated. Bassey also noted that the response to climate change by the Nigerian government has been contradictory in many ways; and calls for genuine, clearcut and peoples oriented actions that protect people and the environment.
The first keynote address was delivered by Professor Zacharys Anger Gundu, Vice-Chancellor, University of Mkar, Mkar Nigeria. He spoke on The Dynamics of Climate Change and Impacts on Migration, Conflict and Food Security in Nigeria. The university don established the nexus between climate change, food crises, migration and conflicts – noting that these must not be treated in isolation. Nigeria’s peculiar climate challenges are: desertification, rising temperatures, increased flooding, loss of biodiversity and ecosystem disruption, soil and land degradation, and shrinking of the Lake Chad. The vulnerable areas are the Sahelian States, the Southern Latitudes, the Greater Lake Chad Area, Coastal Arears and the Cross River Area.

We must understand how climate change is forcing migration and driving insecurity and food crises. We must also acknowledge the contributory roles that we play in bringing about climate change. We must admit the recklessness in land-use and the profiteering from the spoils of dangerous exploitation of both the human person and of “resources”. Prof. Gundu x-rayed the point that the world is sick because people are recklessly profit driven and do not care how their activities impact peoples and the planet. He advocates that we need to work frantically to reverse the tides of impacts – while noting that the thinking that puts us on our knee cannot get us up on our feet.

The second keynote address posed the question “Does The Tragedy of the Commons Explain the Lessons Derived from the Economic History of Nigeria and Resource Extraction?” and was delivered by Professor Chinedum Nwajiuba. To corroborate and attempt to address the question which the keynote poses, Prof. Nwajiuba yet again asked further question: Why does it seem we treat the Nigeria environment as if no one owns it? Why do we treat our country and our environment as if it is some kind of commons, from which all exploit, without thinking of its health, and its sustainable exploitation? Why this tragedy of exploiting our natural resources as if we are bent on destroying our society and our environment?

The economic history of Nigeria and the role of resource extraction were the core interest of his presentation – delving into the historical perspectives of Nigeria’s experiences with mineral extraction as well as Nigeria’s core economic history.

A panel session of experts held to dissect the existential challenges of desertification, floods, hydrocarbon pollution, drought, mining and deforestation. Another panel session highlighted recommendations and solutions in a bid to enthrone food sovereignty, adequate climate change response, ecosystem restoration and ecological justice.
A third panel session was the discussion and launching of the book: Geopolitics of Green Colonialism. The discussions were centred on the three parts of the book: hegemonic transitions and the geopolitics of power; analysing green colonialism: global interdependencies and entanglements; and horizons towards a dignified and liveable future.

The resolutions at the end of the Convergence included:

  1. In recognition of the adverse impacts of drought and desertification on the lives of the people in the affected areas, it is critical that governments create intervention programmes aimed at supporting the livelihoods of communities and ensuring that people have the needed assistance to rebuild their lives and livelihoods.
  2. The government must invest in flood control systems, levees, and drainage systems, to protect vulnerable communities. These structures should be designed with community input and managed sustainably.
  3. Governments at all levels need to go beyond the routine announcements of impending floods without any corresponding assistance for communities to relocate or survive the floods. Bold transition initiatives that include relocation, aid, and health support should be developed ahead of floods and deployed when floods occur.
  4. Government must protect wetlands from unchecked sand filling and so-called land reclamation.
  5. The people demand an end to all policies that seek to hand over forested areas to corporate interests under whatever guise.
  6. The people call on the federal government to explicitly recognize access to water as a fundamental human right.
  7. The government should enforce existing legislations that criminalize the pollution of water bodies, including through exposure to hydrocarbons or waste dumping.
  8. Regarding GMOs, the government of Nigeria should take a precautionary approach and reverse the commercialization of GMOs.
  9. The people demand the immediate removal of patent rights from all plant seeds and food.
  10. Mining companies operating in Nigeria must be held to international best practices especially as it relates to human and environmental rights. Government must ensure that mining operations do no harm to the environment and people located in mining areas.
  11. The government should designate no mining areas across the country. These will be areas where mining prospecting or actual mining activities are expressly prohibited. These no mining zones should necessarily include the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, forest reserves, water beds, and other areas of critical biodiversity.
  12. Review gas flare fines to reflect the same amount as commercial value of natural gas in the international market.
  13. Transfer gas flare fines to host communities fund to address environmental and health remediation.
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