The Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), has described the Niger Delta region as a territory in which the inhabitants are literally the living dead due to horrific environmental degradation.
It also said that the Niger Delta is not just a sacrifice zone, but holds the history of colonial exploitation, extractivism, expropriation and extermination of the people on a daily and continuous basis.
Dr. Nnimmo Bassey, Executive Director of HOMEF who stated these in a Keynote address he presented at the 3rd Niger Delta Climate Conference which held in Port Harcourt, on Tuesday, July 8, 2025, noted that Bayelsa State with 40% of mangrove forests is gone as there is a 1.5 barrels of crude oil spilled per capita.
He said that if about 14 million cubic meters of natural gas is flared every day at 17 facilities in Bayelsa State alone, it would be releasing toxic elements into the air and causing cancers, breathing illnesses and acid rain.
Bassey said that oil related contaminants such as chromium are present in groundwater at a level 1000 times beyond the World Health Organization limit, and then shockingly, total petroleum hydrocarbons exceeded safe levels by a factor of 1 million.
Speaking on the theme; “building a resilient future: Climate Action & Community Empowerment”, Dr Bassey said to build an excellent future, it has to be mapped and also change our imaginaries just as the people have to determine what the future would look like and build towards attaining it.
In the words of Bassey; “We need to be passionate about this. We need to be conscious of where we are, and act to get to where we want to be. We are considering building a resilient future by integrating climate action and community empowerment.
“Now, what are the key climate actions that are being taken globally today. One is adaptation, and second is mitigation.
Simply put, adaptation means adapting to changing situations, making accommodation with what is coming at you, while mitigation means taking action to stop the change from happening or to reduce the change that is occurring. “When we speak about climate change, sometimes our focus is on the carbon in the atmosphere, but we must also speak about the carbon in the ground that is being extracted and burnt to put that carbon in the atmosphere.
“If we keep looking only into the skies and forget to look at the ground, then of course, we will not really tackle the problem that affects our people on a daily basis. So, we have to look at where the rain started beating us. That deluge drenched us when the first oil well was drilled and exports began in the late 1950s at Otuabagi in the Oloibiri oil field,” he said.
The HOMEF Executive Director noted that the oil wells have since been abandoned in 1070s, but were never decommissioned, stressing that the area has never been cleaned up.
According to him; “As we speak, they are still contaminating the environment, and this happens because of lax regulation. Lax regulation is not accidental, just like ecocide is not happenstance. It’s all about profit for international oil companies and their Nigerian counterparts”.
Bassey said that the Niger Delta is a sacrificial zone where anything goes while the people just manage and struggle to survive, adding that the people who live in the area don’t have to be told about the level of pollution there.
He further said; “The reports are there, the Ogoni report, the Bayelsa report, even the Niger Delta Environment Survey that Shell commissioned in the 90s, but never released, and many others including the one by Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Center, which studied blood samples of women from Otuabagi area, and found them all loaded with hydrocarbons.
“People are literally the walking dead. In November to December 2021 over a period of six weeks, there was an oil blowout on the Santa Barbara River, a well run by Aiteo. That spill all happened in public view.
“The polluters and NOSDRA claimed that a mere 3,000 barrels of crude oil was spilled. Imagine a spill from a well head at high pressure for six weeks. Experts estimate that about 500,000 barrels of crude oil was spilled in that incident.
“And how about Ororo-1 oil well off the coast of Awoye in Ondo State? That oil well blew up 5 years ago and is still burning and spilling as we speak — a clear indication of systemic neglect. How can we be serious about climate action when we have an oil well burning and spilling crude for 5 years?
“It’s an open sore, burning, spilling in broad daylight, destroying livelihoods of communities along the coastline of the Niger Delta, especially at the Awoye area.
“How can we speak of community empowerment in this sort of environment? What would community empowerment look like? What is community empowerment when perpetrators of environmental degradation are abandoning their responsibilities in the so called divestment moves?
“What kind of transition would that be? If a polluter leaves the pollution, hands it over to his allies or other companies that they set up, and moves deeper offshore to pollute from offshore and maybe turn the offshore into a situation that is akin to what they’ve left in our onshore the Niger Delta is not only suffering from loss and damage. It is a lost and damaged territory. It is totally damaged, irreversibly damaged territory,” he stressed.
Dr Bassey then asked a rhetorical question saying; “What has been killing our people? How come we don’t have adults?”, saying that children have been forced to become adults since there are no elderly people.
He therefore demanded the urgent need for remediation, adding that the people are not only going to audit the environment, or did the health, but there must be a cleanup of the entire Niger Delta with reparations.
Bassey said; “There must be payment for the damage that has been done to lives and to the environment. Gas flaring must be stopped and halted. It’s an illegal activity. It’s a crime against humanity. It’s crime against the environment, against Mother Earth. It must be stopped”.
