BY CHIMA NWAFO
Victor Marie Hugo, perceived in intellectual quarters as one of the greatest and best-known French writers- being the son of a soldier – had a perfect grasp of the importance of time, hence his posed: “There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is, an idea whose time has come.”
In the past few weeks, the Orbit had berated the uncaring attitude of Nigerians towards their environment: not even the younger generation who should – like their peers in the developed world – be seriously bothered about climate change and similar issues of ecological concern. And to confirm years of official neglect and un-seriousness, “Over the years, the issue of environmental statistics has not been placed on the National Bureau of Statistics data base, which has become a fundamental issue that must be critically addressed,” Mrs Ibukun Odusote, Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Environment, had said. And to cap the shameful denouement, according to EnviroNews, she added: “Hence, discussions have been held to mainstream environmental statistics into National Planning for Developmental purposes.”
That is clear and unambiguous: To date, after over 60 years of industrial pollution in urban Nigeria and land degradation caused by oil and gas pollution in the Niger Delta and its environs, environmental statistics is yet to be mainstreamed into the nation’s “National Planning for developmental purposes.” What else shall we say? Already, star journalist of blessed memory, Dele Giwa, had once noted in his Parallax Snaps that Nigerians are unshockable. More than 30 years after, nothing has changed. In fact, we are now so immersed in odd and evil occurrences that decency, values and norms have taken flight from the country’s socio-cultural and political firmament. Yet, it’s acceptable as we easily adapt: Life goes on!
Ruing the negative impacts of continued oil exploitation and insecurity on the planned clean-up of Ogoni land while introducing a bill in the Senate last Thursday, Senator Magnus Abe (APC, Rivers South-East), condemned government’s attitude to insecurity and disregard for law: “What I think should be done to address insecurity is that every society rewards the behaviour you want and punish the behaviour you don’t want. In the Niger Delta, violence is being rewarded. If you engage in violence you are rewarded. All over the country criminality is being rewarded. People must be held accountable for their action. When people kill, you say it is cult, it should be murder.”
Besides the foregoing, there are two significant events on the global environmental orbit to confirm Hugo’s timeless words on an idea whose time has come.
As captured in Environment Nigeria, Friends of the Earth Netherlands, penultimate Friday – on behalf of more than 30,000 people from 70 countries – delivered a court summons to Shell to legally compel the oil and gas giant to cease its destruction of the climate. The 236-page complaint was reportedly delivered to Shell’s International Headquarters at The Hague by Friends of the Earth Netherlands in conjunction with “five other civil society organisations and a group of around 400 co-plaintiffs.” Five days later, in East Africa, the Supreme Court announced its verdict in the landmark case of the Zambian communities consistently polluted by Konkola Copper Mines (KCM), a subsidiary of British multinational miner, Vedanta Resources Plc, allowing them to have their case against the parent company and its subsidiary tried in the UK.
The landmark verdict is of utmost importance to the Nigerian media, civil society groups, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), among other government agencies, and particularly the people and nine state governments of the Niger Delta or oil-producing states. Due to fear of loss of advertisement patronage, environmental news are treated with care in media houses, just as robbery incidents in banks are reported often without mentioning names, because banks are too emotional in their reaction. Whereas oil giants enjoy Federal Government’s backing, the people in oil-bearing communities who are direct victims of ecological degradation are so obtuse and inactive. Among the nine state governments, only Governor Henry Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State has taken a stand to fight what he aptly described as “environmental terrorism.” Take the persistence of the Zambians whose pollution experience dates back to 2004, for an example.
Before the Supreme Court victory, the poor villagers had gone through the lower courts, and lost. They never gave up. At the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice, Lady Hale and four other judges, re-affirmed the rulings of the lower courts in 2016 and 2017; and rejected Vedanta’s grounds of appeal, stating that, contrary to their lawyers’ claims: “The claimants do have a bona fide claim against Vedanta; the company does owe a duty of care to the claimants, especially in view of the existence of company-wide policies on environment and health and safety; that the size and complexity of the case, and the lack of funding for claimants at ‘at the poorer end of the poverty scale in one of the poorest countries of the world’ means that they do not have substantive access to justice in Zambia.”
The tragedy of poverty and corruption in Africa – as played out in several cases against multinationals in Nigeria – was highlighted by the learned Justice in the last paragraph of her ruling: not having substantive access to justice in one’s fatherland. The 1,826 claimants, ironically represented by a UK law firm, Leigh Day, are from farming and fishing communities downstream, where the British Company operates.
In Netherlands, the civil society groups were not oblivious to the financial and political muscle of Shell, hence Donald Pols, Director of Friends of the Earth Netherlands noted: “Shell’s directors still do not want to say goodbye to oil and gas. They would pull the world into the abyss. The judge can prevent this from happening.” But the oil czar is not perturbed because they had had anticipated this development over two decades ago, but cared less, due to the intoxicating power of capitalism, backed by science and technology. Perhaps, coincidentally, Friends of the Earth International Climate Justice and Energy campaigner, Sara Shaw, disclosed: “In leaked company documents from the 1990s, Shell predicted that environmental organisations would start suing the company for causing climate change, if it did not listen to the warnings of its own scientists. Well, that day has come. This rising tide of climate litigation will finally call climate wrecking corporations like Shell to account and stop them in their tracks.”
This seems to confirm that, however poor or uninformed a community may be, international awareness on the risk climate change poses has raised the ante of global environmental activism. Multinational miners may lobby and manipulate corrupt public officials and agencies, but they can no longer hide.
*Nwafo, Environmental/Public Affairs Analyst, can be reached on: chi_dafo@yahoo.com; 2348029334754.
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