Environmental science journalists organisations from Brazil, Europe, Latvia, Nigeria, Philippines, and Romania are collaborating to organise training sessions under a programme being supported by the European Community.
Faleiros
Tagged “Flag It!”, the project will teach young journalists how to use digital tools to map environmental issues. Brazilian environmental journalist, Gustavo Faleiros (of O Eco), will facilitate the training sessions.
Funded by the European Community (EC) Youth in Action programme, the project is being executed by the European Youth Press (EYP), with Association O Eco – Brazil, Philippines Network of Environmental Journalists (PNEJ), Nigerian Association of Science Journalists (NASJ), Association of Students at Journalism and Communication Studies – Romania, and Forum for European Journalists Students – Latvia, as partner organisations.
The project entails four workshops that will hold in Rio de Janeiro (or Sao Paulo), Lagos, Manila and Bucharest between now and October 2013. Each workshop will feature two participants each from the partner organisations.
The conferences/workshops will hold thus: Brazil (27 May to 2 June), Nigeria (1 to 7 July), Philippines (9 to 14 September) and Romania (7 to 13 October). At the end of every workshop, participants are expected to write stories (that will be published on the Flag It! website, and other news media). The EYP will take care of the expenses of all participants at the forums. Writers of the best articles from each participating country organisation will be sponsored to attend the 2013 UNFCCC Climate Change Conference scheduled to hold in November in Warsaw, Poland.
African Voices, a permanent exhibition that examines the diversity, dynamism, and global influence of Africa’s peoples and cultures has profiled Dr Newton Jibunoh, a trailblazing explorer, environmentalist and historian, who has dedicated his life to curbing the scourge of poverty caused by desertification.
Jibunoh
Environmentalist Newton Jibunoh is one of Nigeria’s renowned explorers. He witnessed extreme drought and famine on solo expeditions across the Sahara Desert and has been committed to finding solutions to desertification, a phenomenon where fertile land becomes desert. He has travelled the world to find solutions and set up a pilot project in the desert area of northern Nigeria. The interview was aired on the international news channel.
Dr Jibunoh in an interview with Vladimir Duthier, CNN Nigeria Correspondent, recounts his experience on his expeditions across the Sahara Desert and his efforts in curbing the scourge of poverty caused by desertification.. He has adopted the Fade Initiative (Fight Against Desert Encroachment) and also started a pilot project in the desert area of northern Nigeria outside Kano state.
“We found out that most of the initiatives that we developed to combat the encroachment of the desert will take somewhere to 30-40 possible 50 years to realise, especially if you want to bring some kind of a sanity to the whole arrangement of combating desertification,” he explained.
His partnership with Lagos and Kano state governments is as a result of his perceived need to start bringing in the younger generation that will bring about some kind of continuity to take this project to the next generation.
Jibunoh, is a PhD holder from the Nnamdi Azikiwe Universty in Awka and University of Benin, he has successfully driven across the Sahara Desert three times. His background is in Engineering with a specialisation in Soil Mechanics.
He worked for the Costain Group where he rose to Chairman/CEO, a position he held for 16 years. He is a Fellow of the Nigerian institute of Builders (NIOB), with over 35 years’ experience in the building and construction industry.
He has also acquired over 40 years of relevant experience in the environment, where he has carried out various research themed visits and survey works on desertification and went on a study tour to the Cold and Arid Regions Environment and Engineering Research Institute in China.
He was also part of a team that was sponsored by the United States Consular Office in Abuja for a two-week course at the University of Arizona. He is a member of the Federal Government’s delegate to Climate Change Conferences and has taken part in conferences held in Bangkok (Thailand), Copenhagen (Denmark) and more recently Cancun (Mexico).
An Emeritus Ambassador of Environment for Lagos State, some of his research work and findings have been documented in his books, “Me, My Desert and I” and “Bridging The Sahara Desert”.
When the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report on the assessment of the Ogoni environment was released in August 2011, the world was astounded at the level of devastation visited on the territory by decades of oil extraction and pollution.
A polluted water body in Ogoniland
Ogoniland in Nigeria shot into international glare in the early 1990s when the people peacefully demanded an end to reckless despoliation of their land and waters. When the UNEP report was released there was a general sense of relief that at last a definitive study has been carried out in at least a part of the Niger Delta and that remediation steps would be taken to rescue the people from the impacts of the pollution.
Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC or Shell), the major polluter in the territory, paid for the study in a rather poetic turn of events, on the polluter-pays basis. If that was not an admission of culpability in the ecocide in Ogoniland, you may have to invent another word for the crime.
The report showed a staggering level of pollution that would require 25-30 years of clean-up activities if there were to be a chance of real remediation. Many people expected the government to declare Ogoniland a disaster zone. The Ogoni people waited to see some clean-up action. The Nigerian people waited to see some clean-up action. The international community waited to see some clean-up action. That the expected action was not forthcoming was a scandal of massive proportions.
Nothing was done until 12 full months rolled by. In other words, since the report was issued till that date, a full year was added to the estimated time needed to restore the Ogoni environment. But what was done after one year?
It took one year after it had been ascertained that there was no safe drinking water in Ogoniland and that the land itself was polluted to depths of up to five metres in places, for any whisper to be heard from the corridors of power.
The UNEP report set out simple emergency actions to be taken to ensure an acceptable clean up of Ogoniland. One of the key recommendations was that government should set up an “Ogoniland Environmental Restoration Authority.” This authority was to have a starting fund of $1 billion. Rather than set up this body that would set about the restoration of Ogoni land, what government did was to set up what it calls the Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration Project (HYPREP). This project has succeeded in planting some pollution warning signposts in Ogoniland and billboards on oil thefts in Port Harcourt.
A cursory comparison of the recommended body and the entity that government created shows that something is critically wrong. Why set up a body that would restore rather than clean up pollution? Ogoniland is badly polluted as it is, to set up a body to compound the pollution is alarming, not amusing. Ken Saro-Wiwa, a stickler for correct concepts and sentences, would have written copiously on this twisted contraption if the jackboots had not wickedly truncated his life in 1995.
UNEP officials led by Erik Solheim, former Norwegian Minister of Environment and International Development and UNEP Special Envoy for Disasters and Conflicts, visited Nigeria early February 2013 to meet with government officials and some partners in Abuja and Port Harcourt. The purpose of the visit was to get a sense of what was being done with the UNEP Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland and to know what the next steps would be.
It is not clear what the team came away with, but we at least know that UNEP is committed to seeing the report implemented and Ogoniland cleaned.
In a statement issued by UNEP at the start of the visit, Solheim, who led the team, said: “With regard to Ogoniland, the UN system is committed to supporting the government throughout the entire process of implementing the recommendations of the report. On behalf of UNEP, I look forward to coordinated and collaborative action with our Nigerian and international partners in addressing pollution in Ogoniland.”
The Ogoni people are one of the most mobilised peoples anywhere in the world. The umbrella Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) enjoys a high level of support across the Ogoni kingdoms, has provided consistent leadership over the years and is well respected by the people. That is, despite some difficult moments, as would be expected of any serious movement.
The degree of cohesion of the Ogoni people provides an excellent template for government to set about the clean up of the territory in a transparent and easy manner. If there are to be difficulties it should be of the technical kind, not the socio-political varieties.
It is not too late for the government to scrap HYPREP and set up the recommended “Ogoniland Environmental Restoration Authority.” We will call this the Authority for short.
HYPREP was a hasty creation to tell the world that at least one step had been taken, one year after the release of the UNEP report.
Government should not be shy to do the right thing. Steps taken in the wrong direction may be many, but keeping in that direction may not eventually lead to the right destination. It is equally wasteful to insist on building on a faulty foundation.
Scrap HYPREP, set up the Authority. This Authority would then set about consulting the people, call mass meetings of the Ogoni people, circulate the popular (pidgin English) version of the summary of the UNEP report which can be downloaded from the UNEP website, present the strategy for the clean up to the people and transparently set out the budget outlay for the exercise. The Authority would have the Ogoni people endorse its broad plan and strategies for implementation and monitoring as well. The Authority should be domiciled in either the Ministry of Environment or in the Presidency. It should by no means be located in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources – a key polluter, through the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, in Ogoniland.
The extent of pollution and the need to ensure that the clean up is not an occasion for jobbers must be stressed. As UNEP acknowledges, the clean-up required will be complex and there may not be a single method of getting this done. Any delay means further reducing the quality of life and the life expectancy of the people that has already dropped to just over 40 years mainly due to the hydrocarbon pollution. Bloodshed and great sacrifices have been borne by the Ogoni people. The clean up of the territory is not an occasion for gambling.
The selection of consultants, contractors and the handling of the budget require very strict oversight. While we agree that it is possible to have officials in the Authority to handle the procurement and budgetary matters, it is believed that while the in-house crew play roles in those tasks, an agency such as UNEP should play major oversight roles. If this recommendation were accepted UNEP would not handle any of the clean up jobs, but would play a monitoring role.
We are yet to see the Senate and the House of Representatives taking up the clean up of Ogoniland as a critical issue of concern. They need to. It is their duty to should ensure that a proper Authority is set up and that there is adequate budgetary outlay for the tasks with both government and Shell putting the money on the table and having an umpire like the UNEP empowered to warehouse the funds.
Getting things on the right track is extremely urgent. As UNEP stated, “Continued delay in the implementation of the recommendations will not only undermine the livelihoods of the Ogoni communities, but will also cause the pollution footprint to expand. In the long run, the findings of the study itself will become dated, and therefore further assessments will be needed, causing additional delays.” UNEP hoped to “convey this sense of urgency to the stakeholders during” the mission. It would be another scandal if this sense of urgency gets ignored.
By Nnimmo Bassey (Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria)
The Special Envoy of the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Erik Solheim, has restated the organisation’s determination to restore Ogoniland in the Niger Delta region in Nigeria. The communities in the region have been degraded by decades of pollution from oil exploration activities.
Protesters seeking speedy and transparent implementation of the report
The Envoy to Achim Steiner (UNEP Executive Director) also commended the Federal Ministry of Environment for its exemplary work in the country.
Erik told Environment Minister, Hadiza Ibrahim Mailafia, in Abuja at a meeting that he was in the country to engage key stakeholders on the anticipated work in the restoration of Ogoniland. He added that although Nigeria was leading in the exercise, the United Nations’ system had a variety of experts and scientists it was willing to deploy to assist Nigeria in any way.
Responding, Mailafia thanked the UNEP for its partnership and support through visits and interaction with the various communities in the area, leading to the writing of the report. She disclosed that the Federal Government had already made a lot of progress in the implementation of the report, and tried to carry all the communities along because, according to her, they have a lot at stake.
She described Erik’s visit as a “clarion call that we should move faster than we are moving now. But, I assure you that things are working,” she said.
Several years ago, UNEP released the “Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland” report, which highlights the unique challenges and complexities of Ogoniland.
Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC), a major oil prospecting firm, withdrew from the area and halted production in 1993 following several attacks against its staff. The communities have granted the company only limited access since then.
The organisation has expressed the hope that the UNEP report will be a catalyst for cooperation to address the challenges in Ogoniland and the wider Niger Delta. It likewise welcomes President Goodluck Jonathan’s initiative to set up a Presidential Committee to coordinate required actions by all parties.
The National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) was established by Act No. 15 of 2006 as a deliberate and articulate response by the Federal Government to the persistent environmental degradation and devastation of the coastal ecosystem especially, in the oil-producing areas of the Niger-Delta region.
Effect of oil spill on a supposed water body
NOSDRA is statutorily empowered to co-ordinate oil spill management and ensure the implementation of the National Oil Spill Contingency Plan (NOSCP) for Nigeria in accordance with the International Convention on Oil Pollution Preparedness, Response and Cooperation (OPRC) 1990, which Nigeria has ratified. The NOSCP is a blueprint for checking oil spill through containment, recovery and remediation/restoration. It was drafted in 1981 and first reviewed in 1997, and further reviewed in 2000 and 2006.
NOSDRA is essentially mandated to play the lead role in ensuring timely, effective and appropriate response to all oil spills, as well as protect threatened environment and ensure clean up of all impacted sites to the best practical extent.
But the agency has been found wanting in effectively achieving stated objectives, no thanks to seeming limitations of its operation, ostensibly due to the lack of an enabling law that would empower it to prosecute oil companies against spillage and other environmental pollution in the country.
A NOSDRA official said recently: “The current situation of oil spillage and pollution cannot be properly put under control, because we are still waiting for the National Assembly to approve the amendment we requested, which will enable us punish oil companies engaging in oil spillage.”
According to him, the proliferation of laws against oil spillage notwithstanding, the country still lacks a clear-cut law and policy that would checkmate oil companies from abusing the ecosystem.
“As it is now, we don’t have serious laws meting out punishment to offenders when it has to do with oil pollution especially in the Niger Delta,” said the NOSDRA official, who was referring to the ongoing review of the NOSDRA Enabling Act (2006). A bill to that effect was sponsored by Senator Abubakar Bukola Saraki (Kwara Central), the Senate Committee Chairman on Environment and Ecology, who has underlined the need to tinker with the Act to conform to international standards.
He had frowned at NOSDRA’s call to Nigeria Agip Company Limited to pay the sum of N1 million as fine over Agip’s alleged failure to immediately contain, recover and clean up oil spill at its OB/OB Gas plant in Obrikom, Omoku, Rivers State. The Senator lamented that the fine imposed was not deterrent enough for such offence that has the potential to cause degradation of the environment and inflict long lasting damage to the health of the people living in the community.
He vowed that his committee in the Senate would review the enabling act establishing the agency to conform and strengthen its ability to deter bad behaviours and protect the environment while living up to world best practises on prevention of oil spillage in the country.
Amid claims by oil firms that over 70 percent of the spillage is caused by indigenes through sabotage, Saraki, however maintains that 50 percent of oil spills in Nigeria are due to corrosion of oil infrastructure including pipelines that are over 40-50 years old and therefore above integrity value, 28 percent of the spills are determined to be as a result of sabotage, while 21 percent result from production operations. According to him, negligence plays a major role in oil spills in Nigeria.
The bill on the subject has already undergone the First and Second Readings in the Senate. A Public Hearing on the bill held last November. The Leadership for Environment and Development – Anglophone West Africa (LEAD-AWA) played an active role during this session in Abuja by lending its voice to the debate.
An international non-profit organisation, LEAD operates a fellowship programme that gives emerging leaders the skills, knowledge and network of contacts to bring about transformational change for a sustainable future. Its Anglophone West Africa (AWA) programme is based in Lagos.
Two LEAD Fellows – Adeolu Odusote (an engineer based in Abuja) and Dr. Olawale Ajai (a lawyer and LBS Faculty) – represented LEAD-AWA at the daylong proceedings.
Indeed, according to LEAD-AWA Programme Director, Maureen Akintayo, the organisation’s intervention and concern was informed by “the role FEDEN/LEAD-AWA has played since 1992 in the enactment of similar policies and its furtherance of our sustainable development agenda.”
If the bill is eventually passed into law, NOSDRA will be re-designated as “National Oil Pollution Management Agency”, which is charged “with the responsibility to prevent, detect, minimise and respond to all spillages and pollution as well as gas flaring and leakages and other hazardous and obnoxious substances in the petroleum sector, coordinate private sector participation in oil pollution management, have access to the ‘Oil Spillage Liability Trust Fund’ as set up by law.”
According to the new provisions, the total of the liability of an oil spiller excluding removal costs incurred by him or on his behalf with respect to each incident shall not exceed N50,000 per barrel (for a tank vessel), N100,000 per barrel (a vessel of less than 3,000 gross tons), N150,000 (vessel of 3,000 gross tons), N250,000 (any other vessel), total of all removal costs plus N5 billion (offshore facility except a deep-water port), and N15 billion (onshore facility and/or deep-water port.
It shall not be a defence to show that the spill was as a result of accident or lack of deliberate intentions.
Similarly, the responsible party on any oil spill shall in all cases report an oil spill incident to the agency in writing, by fax or electronic mail not later than 24 hours after the occurrence of an oil spill in default of which the failure to report shall attract penalty in the sum of N10 million for each day to report the occurrence.
In the same vein, a gas pipeline or storage facility owner/lessee/operator is by the Act to report an unauthorised gas release or leakage incident to the Agency in writing, by fax or electronic mail not later than 24 hours after the occurrence of the gas leakage in default of which the failure to report shall attract penalty in the sum of N10 million for each day of failure to report the occurrence.
Furthermore, the failure to clean up the impacted site by a spiller, to all practical extent including the submission of action plan for remediation within two weeks of the occurrence of the spill, shall constitute an offence and, upon conviction, the oil spiller shall be liable to a fine not less than N3 million per day the spill is not cleaned up or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years or an amount up to three times the costs incurred by the Agency as a result of such failure.
It is quite unfortunate that millions of Nigerians are struggling to make ends meet simply because their source of livelihood is impacted by what is going on in their land. It is indeed the destruction of the right of communities to live in a safe, decent and healthy environment.
According to observers, oil spills in the oil producing communities of the Niger Delta region in Nigeria have done great harm to both the people and their ecosystem. The spillage is estimated at more than 15 million barrels since oil production started in the late 1950s in the region. A United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report acknowledges that some of the spills of the over 40 years had not been cleaned or remediated till date.
Experts say that the ruling penultimate week by a Dutch court that partially held Royal Dutch Shell responsible for pollution in the region has set a precedent for global environmental accountability because companies can now be tried in their home countries for their acts or omissions in their host countries.
The oil giant was ordered to pay damages to one farmer, though the court dismissed four other allegations against the company. The amount of damages to be paid would be announced at a later date.
The case was brought against Shell by the farmers and the Dutch arm of the environment watchdog group, Friends of the Earth. It is the first time a Dutch multinational has been taken to a civil court in the Netherlands in connection with damage caused abroad.
In the last couple of days, I have been so close to people who lost their loved ones in the course of childbirth.
The first was a friend’s cousin who went into comma after childbirth at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH). She died a month later, leaving behind husband and children, among other family members.
The other person was a stylist in a salon who died while giving birth to her fourth child. The painful part was that she was under 30 years and already had three children. She died with the baby as she could not be delivered of it.
As I ponder over these deaths I could not but wonder how rampant maternal deaths have become to women. Indeed, the needless deaths of women and children have continued despite global efforts since 2,000 when world leaders agreed to improve the standard of living of the common man, courtesy of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Jude Osaze, whose relative was a victim, stated: “When I hear the statistics of women who die during childbirth in Nigeria, I doubt the statistics and wonder how they came about such an exaggerated record. But I’m now convinced that more women lose their lives during childbirth. Do you know that, in some rural communities, women patronise traditional birth attendants and some of these births and deaths are not documented?”
Yomi Pearse, in a similar situation with Osaze, said: “I lost my wife during childbirth even after all the antenatal and precautions taken to prevent her from dying. But, alas, my dear wife died giving birth. The baby survived but my precious wife is gone. Every time I look at that child, I regret getting her pregnant but that was meant to be our last child because we agreed on having three kids.
“Atinuike struggled till she could not fight any longer. She lost so much blood after delivering the baby and we had to buy six pints of blood but all to no avail. She died with a smile on her face. I wept day and night for weeks but it did not bring back my baby girl.”
Some cultures pride having many children as a big deal. Among the Mbaise people of Imo State, when a woman gives birth to 12 children, she is appreciated by the sacrifice of a goat/cow, depending on the wealth of the family. With the harsh economic realities and poor state of our health facilities, will a woman risk her life in the name of cultural celebration?
In as much as the Holy Book urged us to “multiply and fill the earth,” now men should consider many factors before getting their wives pregnant. I also know of a school of thought that believes that children bring progress and success.
My parents named me Uzoma which, according to my mum, was informed because my birth ushered in economic advancement for my dad. My mum said that my dad bought his first Peugeot car after my birth.
As Africans, in as much as we hold strongly to our belief system/values, should we sacrifice our sisters, daughters, wives, in-laws, cousins and nieces in the name of childbearing, when it is obvious that the odds are against her getting pregnant and having safe delivery?.
The God-factor is inevitable when miracles happen, when a lady could have been written off by science and medicine.
But daily, many lives are lost during childbirth across Nigeria. The only reason we might not know or feel it is because it is not “close to home”, that those who die are not our immediate relatives.
It is now a common trend for most Nigerians that can afford it to go abroad for child delivery. I know of a friend who gave up suing a hospital for the death of his sister during childbirth because, according to him, the more the case dragged in court, the more he got frustrated and the pains intensified.
How committed are our government officials to fight towards improving maternal care?
Sometime last year, I sat in a committee to determine the fate of our women as regard safe delivery and I saw that politics was more important than the improvement of maternal care and child mortality.
I will sing the praises of Governor Segun Mimiko of Ondo State, who established a specialist hospital to ensure safe delivery. The Abiye Hospital that I visited last year in Akure, the state capital, aims to improve maternal health and reduce child mortality.
It is time for more government actions in ensuring that our healthcare facilities are worthy of receiving new lives during childbirth and not snuff out lives from both mother and child.
May a death of a woman at childbirth “close to home” not bring forth the reality – that one in every 10 women lose their lives during childbirth.
Safe delivery is the right of every woman in Nigeria and not the reverse, a situation that has now become a testimony in our places of worship.
The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has described a Dutch court ruling today which held Shell liable for the pollution of fish ponds and farmlands in Ikot Ada Udo community in Akwa Ibom as a major watershed in the quest for environmental justice in the Niger Delta.
The group disclosed In a statement issued in Lagos that while it disagreed with the court’s position that the polluted farmlands and fishponds in Goi and Oruma, in Rivers and Bayelsa states respectively were due to alleged sabotage by local community people, the ruling on Ikot Ada Udo has set a precedent for global environmental accountability because companies can now be tried in their home countries for their acts or omissions in their host countries.
Four farmers, supported by Friends of the Earth (FoE), dragged Shell to the court in The Hague, Netherlands, thousands of miles away from their communities in Nigeria where Shell’s defective pipelines caused damage to their fishponds and farmlands in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Shell has consistently denied responsibility. It refused to clean-up the spill and did not pay compensation.
The Hague Civil Court said that the level of damages in the case of Ikot Ada Udo would be established at a later hearing.
It rejected claims by the two other communities, saying the pollutions were caused by saboteurs, and that, under Nigerian law, oil companies are not responsible unless they breach their duty of care. The Goi and Oruma communities have three months to appeal.
ERA/FoEN Executive Director, Nnimmo Bassey, said: “Finding Shell guilty of the spill at Ikot Ada Udo is commendable but we want to see how Shell can celebrate the faulty conclusion reached by the court that they can be exonorated from the ecocide at Goi and Oruma. The company’s disdain for the wellbeing of communities that suffer the impacts of its reckless exploitation of oil in the Niger Delta has been legendary. The spill at Ikot Ada Udo went on for months and in open farmland and yet Shell had the temerity to fight to avoid culpability. It is just and fair that it is held accountable for this crime.
“This win for Ikot Ada Udo has set a precedent as it will be an important step that multinationals can more easily be made answerable for the damage they do in developing countries. We anticipate other communities will now demand that Shell pay for the assault on their environment.
“Until now it has been very problematic because it is difficult to bring cases against these companies in their home countries, because the legislation is often not advanced or properly applied.”
ERA/FoEN Director, Programmes and Administration, Godwin Uyi Ojo, noted: “While we commend the Dutch court ruling, it is now time the western countries pass laws compelling companies to enforce the same environmental responsibility standards abroad as at home.
“Shell’s volte face in the face of incontrovertible evidence has again shown the double standards of the oil companies in treating spills incidents in Nigeria differently from their pollution in Europe or North America. We are still optimistic that the Goi and Oruma communities will get justice. The ruling against the two communities will be appealed,” Ojo stressed.
Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), who recently took a look at the current National Biosafety Agency (Establishment) Bill of 2010, have warned that the Nigerian government did not take into account the concerns of local farmers, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and critical stakeholders in its formulation. The bill is presently awaiting the President’s consent.
At a forum held recently in Benin City, the Edo State capital, courtesy of the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), participants observed that, if passed in its present state, the bill would be an open door for manipulation by multinational corporations and gene giants promoting genetically modified organisms (GMOs), acting in alliance with some research institutes.
A GMO is an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. GMOs have had specific changes introduced into their DNA by genetic engineering techniques.
“We do not need to endanger our environment and crop varieties on the altar of GMOs. We do not want GM cassava or GM rice purported to be fortified with Vitamins, we can get high amounts of Vitamin A from just eating carrots,” submitted the participants at the end of the daylong event.
According to them, the much-touted benefits of GMOs, upon critical analysis, are found to be myths.
“In 2008, over 400 scientists, 30 governments from developed and developing countries and 30 civil society organisations, concluded work under the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). The report observed that modern biotechnology would have very limited contribution to the feeding of the world in the foreseeable future,” the communiqué noted.
It added: “Promoters of GMO and their allies have deliberately ignored the importance and the peculiarities of the African and indeed Nigerian culture, environment and agriculture in their aggressive attempts to impose their products in Nigeria and Africa. Rather than African governments getting committed to promotion of agro-ecological agriculture practices, they have become tied to the apron-strings of speculators and neo-colonial powers whose objective is to exploit, subjugate and destroy food production systems in the continent.
“Contrary to the arguments peddled by modern biotechnology industry, there are few or no tangible success stories on GMOs and Nigeria must not be used as ground for experiments for unverified technologies. Genetically engineered crops are being resisted and rejected in many countries in Europe as well as Africa and it is not correct to paint a picture of major strides being made by the proponents.”
Participants therefore urged government not to assent to the National Biosafety Bill in its current form in order to give opportunity for citizens and stakeholders’ input in line with the provisions of the Cartagena Protocol which Nigeria is signatory to.
“We urge the President not to give assent to the bill until it is further improved, because after three readings in the National Assembly, it is still defective in many aspects.”
They listed its flaws of include the fact that it: does not mention the issue of liability and redress; omits an important step in the development of GM crops from regulation; does not contain meaningful provisions ensuring effective public participation; does not take into account the precautionary principle; contains inconsistent language to an extent not acceptable; has no provision on co-existence; and, deliberately omits provision on labeling.
The activists urged government to put in place mechanism to monitor commercial importation of food to ensure that they are not contaminated by GMOs, even as they underlined the need for Nigeria to have a strict Biosafety law that adequately protects the nation’s food health and environment.
Apart from the ERA/FoEN, other groups that endorsed the communiqué included: Committee on Vital Environmental Resources (COVER), Community Forest Watch (Okomu Forest), Community Watch (Iguobuzuwa), Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Community Research and Development Center (CREDC), Collation for the Defense of Democracy and Good Governance, Healing Handsmaker, Budget Watch Group and Student Environmental Assembly (University of Benin).
Others were: Student Environmental Assembly (Delta State University), Edos Future, True Vine Initiative, Accurate Visions, Oasis Venture, Association of Women Farmers of Nigeria (AWFAN), Life Lift (Benin City), Cradle and Black Civilization Initiative Foundation for Good Governance and Social Change, Host Communities Aifesoba and Host Communities Network of Nigeria (HoCoN).
Living in Kpeyegyi community, one of the several satellite communities of Abuja, is really challenging.
The community is not only close to the nation’s seat of power but lack so much – they have no good roads, potable water, health facilities and good transport system. Majority of them live in accommodation not befitting the status of people associated with a Federal Capital City like Abuja.
In Kpeyegyi, absence of a health care facility, no proper drainage and toilet systems are indices of under development in the community.
Kpeyegyi is a small settlement after Jikwoyi community in Orozo Ward of AMAC, situated along the Karshi-Orozo Road but its residents’ worse nightmare is access to safe water.
Due to the absence of pipe borne water in the area, residents are forced to drink from open hand dug wells which are unhealthy to their wellbeing.
During our visit to the community, we discovered that other major sources of water supply in the area are local river and water vendors (mai ruwas) who fetch water from unknown sources only to sell to residents at exorbitant rates.
In the history of Kpeyegyi, there have been many occasions when hundreds of people have died due to water borne-diseases such as cholera, which has been spreading through the community by supply of polluted water to the people by Mai Ruwas.
Joseph Abah, an Accounting Officer in Vestergaard Frandsen Nigeria Limited, lives in Kpeyegyi.
“The water situation in this area is extremely bad. In this community, the only source of water is well water or privately individuals that own boreholes. We do buy water from the water vendors (mai ruwas) and a rubber cost N 20; by the time you calculated five rubbers, you’re spending N100 which you can use to do some other things that are very necessary and I don’t think most people can afford it.
“The problem of water in this community is a serious one that we need the Ministry of Water Resources to come to our aid. Sometimes people fetch water from the well to cook and I would not guarantee that is hygienic or safe water for one to use in cooking or to drink, even in bathing.”
He suggested that in order to ameliorate the sufferings of residents, the government should provide boreholes in several locations in the community.
“We are really passing time in this community especially in this harmattan season, the well gets dried up and the only means of getting water is from the borehole. A lot of people go as far as the river to get water, so if government can think about it and provide us with boreholes I think it will save and lot of life,” he said.
Another resident, Mrs. Joy Aaron, a trader, was worried about the health implication the sources of water in the area to residents relying on the sources.
“The source of water in this area is well water and rivers that emanated from the rock. It is bad because people wash, bathe and also drink from the same water. Some people also use dirty fetchers or container to fetch from the well water.
“This well water also smells a lot. Our lives are in danger because these sources of water can cause water borne diseases such as typhoid. Also, some boreholes are bad therefore are not drinkable. If you boil the water the particles that will come out of the water will not allow someone to use or drink it”.
She also appealed to the government to come to their aid by providing portable and safe water for them.
Speaking in the same vein, Thompson Ngene, a student, said: “In this area, we are lacking good drinkable water because the well water which is the source of water here is very dirty. The well water smells a lot and after using it to wash; it makes my cloths to smell.
“Everybody cannot afford to buy water from the private owned bore holes. Therefore, I beg the government to provide portable water for us because we are suffering a lot especially the less privilege among us. Some drink from this well ignorantly inviting sicknesses,” he added.
The available sources of water remain unsafe, residents get little or no good health from drinking from these sources. When will succour comes to the people closer to the seat of Nigerian power?
