Category: Climate/Ecological Crimes

Verified:GMOs Are Officially Approved to Be Grown in Nigeria

PermitGenetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) Are Officially Approved to Be Grown in Nigeria

The fact that GMOs are approved to be grown in Nigeria is not in doubt. What is disputed is why the approval was surreptitious, to the extent of being issued on a Sunday. We have issues with the press statement issued on the 20th of June 2016, and credited to the Hon. Minister of Environment Amina J. Mohammed, stating that “What we have approved are for field trials.” She further stated that “All the GMOs in Nigeria officially approved are under experimental fields.” The statement further said that the insect-resistant cotton for commercial release will still be subjected to further processes for the next two years.

We doubt that the National Biosafety management Agency (NBMA) has a different understanding of a permit for commercial release and placement in the environment from what the permit document itself states in plain language.

Monsanto Agriculture Nigeria Ltd did not apply for field trials of GMO cotton. They applied for a commercial release and placement in the environment. This means commercial planting of GMO cotton in Nigeria. Section 4 of the permit states and we quote “After a thorough analysis of the application dossier, Risk Assessment and Risk Management plan prepared in connection with the assessment of the application for the permit, it is unlikely that the proposed release will cause adverse impact on the environment and on human health. A permit is therefore granted to the Monsanto Agriculture Nigeria Ltd as applied for.”

This was signed by the Director General/Chief Executive Officer of NBMA on Sunday 1st May 2016.

The permit does not leave room for further trials. The requirement of the applicant is merely to make reports on their experience in their farms. This is very different from confined field trials as is the case with the permit for GMO maize – which, in any case, we equally object to.

Indeed, the press statement directly contradicts the record on the Biosafety Clearing House’s (BCH) website and on NBMA’s official website. The official response to the concerns of Nigerians and massive rejection of the rushed offer of permits for failed GMOs appears to be calculated to obfuscate the issues and lull Nigerians into thinking that all is well.

Clearly, NBMA as conceived and constructed is incapable of objectively managing biosafety regulation in Nigeria. We cannot repose any confidence in an agency that never mentioned or let it slip that they had opened the doors to an influx of GMOs by issuing permits to Monsanto until we announced to the general public.

In this era of change we cannot cling to wrong-headed policies or unto the wrong foot put forward by the previous government. Having a biotech policy cannot be a justification for opening up the nation’s fragile ecosystems and stressed environment to genetically modified organisms. A biotech policy cannot erase the globally accepted Precautionary Principle on which biosafety regulations hang.

While describing the concerns about GMOs expressed by the public as legitimate, the Minister of Environment stated that the Federal Ministry of Environment, in collaboration with the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA), is organizing an experts’ meeting involving civil society groups, national agencies and international organisations to address all concerns expressed, with a view to clarifying Nigeria’s position on the use of GMOs. Our response to this is why did NBMA not take into consideration the robust objections made by 5 million Nigerians to the wishy-washy applications made by Monsanto if the NBMA is ready to hear voices other than those of the biotech industry. NBMA by its letter of 28th April 2016 acknowledge receipt of objection from Health of Mother Earth Foundation and other civil society groups, stated: “your observations have been noted by the Agency… That the National Biosafety Management Agency would review the application holistically and take the best interest of Nigeria, to avoid risks to human health, biodiversity conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. The socio- economic impacts would also be well considered before taking the final decision on the application.”

We consider it intriguing and suspicious that a mere one working day after this letter, the DG of NBMA issued permits to Monsanto. This smacks of utter disdain for opinions and positions of concerned citizens who are conscious of the devastating socio-economic and environmental impacts of the failure of these crops, especially GMO cotton in neighbouring Burkina Faso as well as in India, Pakistan and elsewhere.

We are concerned that NBMA and NABDA keep going around hyping myths sold by the biotech industry to an unsuspecting public, while being careful not to reveal to citizens that they had rushed to issue permits a mere two months after they applications were advertised. NBMA obviously relishes in holding the record as the fastest GMO endorser in the world.

The Permit issued by NBMA to Monsanto also states amongst other things that the “The purpose of the dealings is commercial production of the GM cotton in all areas of Nigeria where cotton is cultivated and for products of the GMO to enter general commerce.” If the Agency insists that commercial release is the same things as filed trials, the Minister of Environment would do well to ask NBMA to issue a glossary of Nigerian GMO terminology.

The Minister also alluded that with the “Act in place, Nigeria has taken laudable strides in order to adopt the necessary legal biosafety framework and policy, bearing in mind that if Nigeria gets it right, it will guide other African countries.”    An analysis of the Biosafety Act shows it as an extremely weak and ineffective law that is rigged to subvert the sanctity of the Nigerian environment and to facilitate the colonization of our agricultural and food systems. It reads like a piece of legislation pieced together by the biotech industry.

As we have stated elsewhere, the board of NBMA is populated by groups avowed to the promotion of GMOs. It is a law that requires urgent review and we call on our President as well as the National Assembly to disband the board of NBMA and repeal or radically review the NBMA Act of 2015 for the security of our food systems, protection of our environment from toxic agro-chemicals and for the preservation of our biodiversity.

We cannot claim to be immune to the dangers that GMOs and attendant chemicals such as glyphosate pose to human and environmental health. Nineteen (19) European countries have completely banned genetically modified crops. On Friday the 24th of June 2016, The Russian State Duma passed a bill banning all import and production of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the country. The bill will affect all crops and animals considered to be genetically modified, except for those used for scientific purposes. Violations of the law carry a fine of 10,000-50,000 ($150-$750) rubles for individuals and 100,000-500,000 rubles for legal entities ($1,500-$7,500).[i] Meanwhile Our Nigerian Biosafety Acts pegs fines for violations at N2, 500,000 (about $7,000) for individuals and N5,000,000 ($14, 000) for companies.

According to the report, “Russian officials insist that country’s farms will be able to produce enough food for the country without the use of yield-increasing GMOs.”  This is not geopolitics; it is biosafety.

In Africa, Rwanda has resolved that it will not lift the ban on GMOs despite a sharp decline in its crop yields. Other countries are resolute in resisting the political arm-twisting associated with the actions of this industry.

Perhaps it is worthy to mention again here that, the BT Cotton application that Monsanto had recycled here in Nigeria was adopted almost verbatim from the Malawian application, Monsanto had sent in 2014 to Malawi. Our sources tell us that the Malawian National Biosafety Regulatory Committee recommended the nullification of the application to the designated Minister of Environment on a number of grounds:  No cost-benefit analysis has been carried out to support Monsanto’s claims that this technology will benefit cotton farmers in Malawi, issues of secondary pests, exposure pathways and pest resistance not addressed, safety and environmental risks had not been adequately addressed by the Monsanto application, issues of liability and redress had been ignored by the application, just to mention a few.[ii] We also objected to Monsanto’s applications in  Nigeria on many grounds.  It is also worthy of note that it took about six months for the Regulatory body in Malawi to come to a decision and recommend to the Minister that Monsanto’s application should be nullified. It took NBMA just a month after 22 days’ window period given to the Nigerian public to submit comments on the applications submitted by Monsanto to issue two Permits to Monsanto to deploy GMOs in Nigeria.

What risk assessments and environmental impact studies did NBMA carry out before issuing these permits?

Surely the Hon. Minister does not expect us to believe that NBMA will do right by Nigerians. How can NBMA really evaluate the efficacy of technologies like GMOs or assure Nigerians of their safety when officials of the agency in all their media appearances do better than GMO salesmen or spokespersons for the biotech industry? How can anyone say there is nothing wrong with a genetically modified crop, Bt Cotton, that just failed in neighbouring Burkina Faso, and the farmers are making claims of $48.3 Billion CFA Francs ($83.91) from Monsanto? Are we having regulators or GMO traders making decisions over our destiny?

Clearly, NBMA as conceived and constructed is incapable of objectively managing biosafety regulation in Nigeria. We cannot repose any confidence in an agency that never mentioned or let it slip that they had opened the doors to an influx of GMOs by issuing permits to Monsanto until we announced to the general public.

We restate our stand that the so-called permits issued to Monsanto to introduce GMOs into Nigeria should be overturned and the Biosafety law itself should be repealed. We also call on the National Assembly to urgently investigate the process leading to the granting of the permit on Sunday, 1st May 2016 to assure Nigerians that we are not pawns and that Nigerians will not be used as guinea pigs in a commercial game to open Africa to toxic technologies.

 

Signed

 

  1. Nnimmo Bassey,

Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF)

nnimmo@homef.org

 

 

  1. Mariann Bassey-Orovwuje,

Food Sovereignty Manager/Coordinator ERA/FoEN and FoE International

mariann@eraction.org

 

  1. Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour

Convener Nigerians Against GMO

grv@nogmong.com

[i] Russian State Duma Bans Import and Production of GMOs http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russian-state-duma-bans-import-and-production-of-gmos/573403.html. The Moscow Times Jun. 24 2016 17:51

[ii] See Objection and press release on civil society position at www.cisanetmw.org./index.php/events1.

 

Oil Politics – echoes of Ecological Wars

Oil Politics cover

Oil Politics – echoes of Ecological Wars
This is to announce Oil Politics – echoes of Ecological Wars a forthcoming book by Nnimmo Bassey published by Daraja Press.
Set out in seven sections, this book of 54 essays deals with deep ecological changes taking place primarily in Nigeria but with clear linkages to changes elsewhere in the world. These essays provide insights into the background to the horrific ecological manifestations that dot the Nigerian environment and the ecological cancers spreading in the world. They underscore the fact there are no one-issue struggles. Working in a context where analyses of ecological matters is not the norm, decades of consistent environmental activism has placed the writer in good stead to unlock the webs that promote these scandalous realities.

Standing Before History

Standing Before History

In his statement before execution, Ken Saro-Wiwa declared: we all stand before history. Today, in another sense, we all stand at the brink of history. We stand at the line denoting the fact of the justness of the historic, determined and heroic calls for a clean up of Ogoniland and the entire Niger Delta.

The submission of the UNEP report on the assessment of the Ogoni environment in August 2011 laid to rest any doubts anyone may have had over the degree of hydrocarbons pollution in the Ogoniland, and by implication the Niger Delta. That scientific work proved to the whole world that Ogoniland has suffered extreme pollution and by interpretation that the response ought to be one of environmental emergency. For years down the road, there has been nothing concrete beyond signposts to indicate that this signal was understood by government.

Today we salute the memory of the Ogoni 13 and all that have laid down their lives, lost their limbs and were displaced in the hard and long years of struggle for justice. Today we stand in solidarity with our peoples who still breathe air loaded with hydrocarbon fumes, drink water laced with toxic chemicals, fish and farm in polluted lands. Today we recall a fragment from one of the letters Ken Saro-Wiwa wrote during his last imprisonment and note his cry for environmental justice:

I’m not going into partisan politics. What I meant is that I would be taking a wider role in the nation’s affairs—expanding the Ogoni struggle to other parts of the delta and beyond. I could never be a part of whatever Abacha is planning for the future. What I want to see, and what I will always argue for is ERECTISM — ethnic autonomy, resource and environmental control. If this comes to pass, then Ogoni will be free and it is to them that I wish to dedicate the rest of my life. And I hope that that can be an example to other ethnic groups. The translation of my dreams into reality. Nothing to do with partisan politics.[1]

With decades of extreme hydrocarbons pollution, the environment of Ogoniland and several places in the Niger Delta has been out of control. The environment that ought to provide the backdrop for life, safety and progress, indeed turned hostile, becoming an impediment to the enjoyment of the right to life.

Today we applaud the courage of President Muhammadu Buhari as he flags off the cleaning of the environment of Ogoniland as the pathway to the detoxification of the Niger Delta environment. Taking this step at a time such as we are in is a mark of commitment that we must salute.

I believe that civil society and concerned peoples of this great nation, will pledge to work to see that this is not a mere political event, but one that is adequately funded, systematically pursued and implemented with clear targets and milestones, with best available expertise and with the full inclusion of local communities. As we commit to do this, we keep in mind the stanza of our national anthem which declares: the labour of our heroes past shall never be in vain.

 

[1] See Silence Would Be Treason- Last writings of Ken Saro-Wiwa, (2013) letter written 24/10/1994

For Our Biosafety & Biosecurity*

IMG_0764The saying goes that a people united can never be defeated. Today we affirm that our unity is built on sound knowledge and on a commitment to ensure that our agricultural and food systems are not by any means compromised or corrupted by GMOs.

The conference on Just Governance: The Nigerian Biosafety Law, GMOs and Implications for Nigerians and Africa could not have come at a more critical time. We are at crossroads in the struggle for sustainable agriculture, safe foods, biosafety and biosecurity. Navigating this intersection and assuring Nigerians that their concerns are not pushed out of view by profit-driven biotech transnational corporations and their agents can only be achieved through a broad movement of vigilant Nigerians, and Africans at large.

The coming together of faith based organisations, farmers, consumers, academics, youths and non-governmental organisations to examine the critical issues under the co-coordination of the Africa Faith & Justice Network (AFJN), Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), Africa Europe Faith & Justice Network (AEFJN) and the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) indicates that the movement to pursue the best interest of Nigerians and Africans is on track.

The saying goes that a people united can never be defeated. Today we affirm that our unity is built on sound knowledge and on a commitment to ensure that our agricultural and food systems are not by any means compromised or corrupted by GMOs.

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), with its Precautionary Principle, sets the minimum international biosafety standards for the trans-boundary movement of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and requires that where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, the lack of full scientific knowledge shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective means to prevent environmental degradation. This key principle is lacking in Nigeria’s Biosafety law. With such a lacuna and many others – including lack of provisions for strict liability, labelling of GMO products, open and full public consultations – there is no guarantee for our biosafety and ultimately biosecurity.

The desperate push by the biotech industry to invade our agriculture and foods has come on the heels of coming into effect of the severely defective National Biosafety Management Act. That law was one of the last actions of the immediate past presidency. It is an act that threatens to enthrone a biosafety regime that caters for the interest of biotech industries seeking markets for their genetically modified crops and related chemicals.

  • We demand that current applications by Monsanto to bring in genetically modified varieties of maize and cotton into Nigeria should be set aside until we have a system that can protect the interest of Nigerians and is in line with the African Model Law on biosafety as well as the requirements of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
  • Although the law is recently enacted, we cannot avoid quickly repealing it or, at a minimum, drastically revising it to ensure that risky or harmful substances do not have a free reign in our land.

Our agricultural systems, including that of saving and sharing seeds, should never be tampered with. Our biodiversity is our strength and this critical inbuilt resilience will be lost if we allow GMOs to erode or erase our heritage and destroy our soils and water with harmful chemicals.

We call on relevant government ministries to jealously guard our crop and animal varieties, provide rural infrastructure, support agro-allied industries for food processing and preservation and expand extension services that were severely constricted by the requirements of the infamous structural adjustment programmes.

Nigeria is not a dumping ground for risky technologies and we are not about to yield to be used as guinea pigs for experimentation by profit driven entities and their local agents. We stand for support of small holder farmers, food sovereignty encompassing our right to safe and culturally appropriate food. We stand for agricultural systems that do not harm the climate.

-ends-

*Statement by Nnimmo Bassey, Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) at the press conference marking close of the Just Governance: The Nigerian Biosafety law, GMOs, and Implications for Nigerians and Africa held at Reiz Continental Hotel, Abuja from May 23-25, 2016.

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IMG_0785Abuja Declaration on The Release Of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in Nigeria*

At the conclusion of the conference on Just Governance: The Nigerian Bio-Safety Law, GMOs, and Implications for Nigeria and Africa held at Reiz Continental Hotel, Abuja, May 23-25, 2016; we, the participants from diverse religious and faith based bodies, communities and civil society organizations (CSOs) from Nigeria, Africa and other parts of the world, affirm that organic foods  are healthy, nutritious and remain a vital aspect of human rights to food and food security.

Informed by the robust, structured and eye-opening presentations by specialists and panelists and spontaneous  contributions by the participants, we strongly object to the release of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in Nigeria, convinced that GMOs are not the solution to hunger.

Nigeria’s fertile land guarantees the nation food sovereignty. Consequently, hunger  is due to bad governance, poor infrastructure for preservation and distribution of food and lack of adequate all round support to small holder farmers who constitute over 70% of the farmers in Nigeria. We, therefore, stornly recommend to  the Nigerian  Government to invest more in agriculture.

The Nigerian Bio-Safety Law, in its present form, is a recipe for the  destruction of Nigeria’s ecosystem, food cultures and systems. The process leading to its passage was devoid of critical input and public participation that would have enabled Nigerians to significantly determine and protect their food cultures and systems. It  lacks legal safeguards for protecting their rights.

We observe that the public hearing at the National Assembly did not meet an acceptable, minimum, global standard and  best practices in a democratic society. The hearing was just a  formality to create the semblance of a democratic process and skewed in favour of the GMOs Trans-National Corporations. The Government should not only introduce appropriate mechanisms but repeal the laws seeking to legalise and  adopt GMO seedlings and food products and consequently marginalize Nigerian farmers.

Furthermore, the Nigerian Bio-Safety Law is not in  the interest of Nigerian farmers and the wider public because it facilitates the introduction of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) on a massive scale that  violates the precautionary principle, which forms the basis of the African Union’s revised African Model Law on Biodiversity, to which Nigeria is a signatory.

We adopt the comments of Health of Mother Earth Foundation and Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria on the relevant sections of the Bio-Safety Law and strongly suggest their incorporation into the Nigerian Law to safeguard the rights of Nigerian citizens and protect Nigeria’s ecosystem.

The potential socio-economic, cultural and ethical impacts of GMOs are enormous and  diminish the positive impacts of small holder farmers who are feeding the country; promoting  cultural practices, community well-being, traditional crops and varieties; reducing rural unemployment; engendering trade; raising the quality of life of indigenous peoples; and re-affirming food security.

Aware that the UN recognizes socio-economic consideration as a key element in biosafety negotiations and decision-making processes (Protocol  on  Socio-Economic Considerations; Article 26), we, therefore, appeal to the Federal Government to conduct a socio-economic impact assessment of GMOs before the Government takes measures that destroy Nigeria’s agricultural sector.

The concern about Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) is not only about safety  for consumers, we are equally concerned about the more damaging  systematic appropriation of the rights to seeds by the Trans-National Corporations that deprives farmers of their traditional rights to seeds, in favor of patents by multinational corporations (South–South Dialogue Conference).

There has been intensive and sustained propaganda on the positive contributions of GMO on food security questions, very little has been done to draw attention to the inherent risks and hazards of industrial mono-cropping and consumption of GMOs  such as loss of biodiversity, destruction of livestock, land grabbing,  land and environmental degradation, communal conflicts over land and loss of rights. Therefore, there is an urgent  need to present the true and full picture to Nigerians.

Industrial agriculture has no real contribution to national food sovereignty of Nigeria. It is part of the western development and capitalist economic regime bent on making Africa remain a cheap resource continent and market for finished products.  More fundamentally, the GMO project is anti-creational. It disturbs, contradicts and destroys the ecosystem. God created every plant and vegetable with its seed in it.

We implore our policy makers to learn from the experience of Burkina Faso and a host of other countries that are rejecting the GMOs and their false gospel of agricultural development. We maintain that  Nigeria’s food sovereignty lies in investing aggresively in agricuture, empowering small holder farmers, and practicing agri-ecology that is sustainable and environment-friendly.

 

Signed:

Rev  Aniedi Okure, OP   –Executive Director AFJN                    

Nnimmo Bassey — Executive Director HOMEF

Fr. Evaristus Bassey — Exective Director Caritas Nigeria and Church and Society Department

Fr.  Chika  Onyejiuwa, CSSp — Executive Secretary AEFJN, Brussels

 

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Communications:

Fr. Evaristus Bassey  Exective Director Caritas Nigeria and Church and Society Department

CBCN www.cbcn.org; www.caritasnigeria.orgfrevaristus@ccfng.org

Aniedi Okure OP,   AFJN http://www.afjn.org/  director@afjn.org, +1-202-817- 3670;

Nnimmo Bassey, HOMEF – www.homef.org  Nnimmo Bassey —  nnimmo@homef.org  ,

Mariann Bassey- Friends of Earth Campaigner  Orovwuje anybassi@yahoo.com  +234-703-449-5940.

Fr. Vincent Ajayi, voajayi@gmail.com  +234-803-308-6456;

Chika Onyejiuwa, C.S.Sp, AEFJN www.aefjn.org/execsecretary@aefjn.org ; +32466182622

 

*Resolutions of the Conference

 

When the Land Bleeds

A day at Ogoni was a homecoming of sorts for me yesterday when the global wave of #BreakFree actions touched down at Bori. The resolve of the Ogoni to peacefully and determinedly fight ecocide is legendary.

The women, with their colourful MOSOP wrappers, were at the Peace Centre before others began to arrive. Etched on their faces were the marks of solidarity, discipline and fortitude that has kept them going in the face of horrendous ecological assaults.  They seemed to say: We will not be moved. Our land must be detoxified.

Ogoni Ecological Defenders (OED) were on hand to help with setting up the props for the actions that were to follow. The OED and Ogoni Women Ecological Defenders (OWED) have been closely connected to HOMEF over the last two years, building knowledge on ways of engaging with the expected Ogoni cleanup process and generally defending their ecosystems.

With music, chants, poetry and spontaneous dance, the march and the rally took place under a bright Ogoni sky. A chant of Ogoni united can never be defeated was quickly taken up by the crowd. Call and responses followed: What do we want? Clean up Ogoni! When do we want it? Now!

A second phase of the Break Free action was a visit to a severely polluted community in B-Dere. The trip led by energetic activist, Celestine Akpobari of Peoples Advancement Centre, was an eye opener. Although the community is a shouting distance from the highway, getting there we met a community that might as well have been at the end of the Earth. Absolutely devastated by an oil spill in 2010 and fire, the pollution stubbornly remains untouched. The villagers were hard at work in their farms by the river bank as we went by.

On the surface the crops looked healthy and flourishing. But their harvest will definitely be one of poison, thanks to the highly contaminate soil, water and air. When you visit places like this you cannot say anything other than: keep it in the ground.

See a short video summary of the day here.

 

Break Free at Ogoni – Silence is Treason!

The MOSOP Peace Centre, Bori, Ogoni is a very significant location in the history of the struggle for a safe Niger Delta in which our peoples live in peace and in dignity and struggle for their rights non-violently. It is thus an important place for our second action to demand that Nigeria breaks free from fossil fuels in order to see a clear path to the future. Two days ago we were at Oloibiri, at the very first oil well in Nigeria. That well was drilled in 1956, but commercial export commenced from 1958. By that time, oil exploration and exploitation had been firmly established in Ogoni. Ogoni is a logical next stop.

Gbene Ogoni!

I salute you, proud Ogoni people. I salute you, leaders of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), I salute you, comrades.

I request that we observe a minute silence in honour of the memories of great Ogoni sons and daughters who have laid down their lives in various circumstances in the course of struggles to halt the dastard pollution of Ogoni land. May the labour of these our heroes never be in vain.

In 1993 Ogoni people, like the Biblical David, pulled down Goliath, when you expelled Shell oil company from your Kingdom. Never have we seen a people more united in the struggle for emancipation from social, economic and ecological slavery. Today your heads are held high and we salute you, proud Ogoni people.

We stand with you today to declare that your action of halting the exploitation of crude oil from your territory has caught the imagination of the whole world. It first inspired Oilwatch International to begin the call to Leave the Oil in the Soil. Today, Keep It in the Ground has inspired a global call. That is why we are here today to declare with you that the whole world must break free from fossil fuels.

Gbene Ogoni!

13083314_1240787495932817_1358579549325665989_n

A refusal to break away from fossil fuels is a call for the continued bastardisation of our air, land and creeks. A refusal to break away from fossil fuels is an unacceptable call for unchecked climate change. A refusal to break away from fossil fuels sentences Nigeria to a corrupt political arrangement that breeds corruption, violence and conflicts, more than anything else.

That is real climate action. Breaking free from fossil fuels is the sensible way today and it is the way of the future. A clean Ogoni land, a clean Niger Delta, a clean world – that is the way to fight global warming and to give humans and other species a fighting chance of survival.

In one of the poems that our hero, Ken Saro-Wiwa, wrote, he declared that silence is treason. We agree and demand that we all speak up and join the global call for all nations to break free from fossil fuels. You showed this in practical terms. Others must take up the call.

How can our environment be clean if we continue to depend on a re-source that is polluting from exploration, exploitation and consumption stages? Indeed, fossil fuels remain polluting even in their post consumption stage. How can our environment be clean if as we clean up we keep adding new pollution? Breaking free from fossil fuels requires a decommissioning and carting away of abandoned oil facilities from Ogoniland. This is what the proposed clean up of Ogoniland must include.

Gbene Ogoni!

You have inspired the entire world by keeping it under the ground for 23 years. We applaud you for this heroic achievement and join you today to raise our voices for this to be taken up by the whole world and for the United Nations to draw up an instrument for the compensation of communities, kingdoms, nations and territories that have successfully kept fossil fuels in the ground and thus established verifiable carbon sinks by not allowing the carbon to be excavated in the first instance.

Our lands are fantastically polluted. And now that the price of petrol has been increased fantastically in Nigeria, it is a strong message that fossil fuel will continue to impoverish our peoples and the way out is to leave this menace in the ground.

That is real climate action. Breaking free from fossil fuels is the sensible way today and it is the way of the future. A clean Ogoni land, a clean Niger Delta, a clean world – that is the way to fight global warming and to give humans and other species a fighting chance of survival. Break free from fossil fuels is a breaking free form the hypocrisy of climate negotiations that refuse to mention fossil fuels. It is a breaking free from corporate capture. The Ogoni did it. We can all do it! Together we can do it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oloibiri: A monument to Fossil Fuels

Break Free from Fossil Fuels actions commenced in Nigeria today, 10th May 2016, with a rally at Oil Well 1, Nigeria’s first oil well drilled in 1956.

It was a gathering of hundreds of citizens, including community chiefs, youths, women groups, and civil society groups in the Break Free Coalition. I bring you excerpts from the rallying calls by me and also from one of the leaders from the neighbouring communities, Chief Napoleon Ofiruma at the feisty event. A star musical performance by BioMagic, a group of environmental activists lead by Akpotu Ziworitin added verve as they sang …Stop the gas Flares, we need fresh air

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Oloibiri A monument to Fossil Fuels

By Nnimmo Bassey

I salute you, Chiefs, community leaders, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters.

As we stand at the very first oil well in Nigeria we see clearly that when the well runs dry all your hopes also dry up. This first oil well, has been named a national monument. This is indeed a monument. This Olibiri Oil Well is a monument to neglect. It is a monument to pollution. It is a monument to destroyed livelihoods and of betrayed hopes. It is a monument to the agents of global warming. It is a monument to fossil colonialism. It is a monumental disappointment. And we are saying, never again!

We cannot have a clean Niger Delta if oil spills continue. We cannot have a clean Niger Delta if pipelines keep getting bombed. We cannot have a clean Niger Delta with broken pipelines and without companies maintaining their facilities.

This oil well demands that we raise our voice and speak out loudly. For the Nigerian economy to be truly diversified, we must break free from the bondage to fossil fuels. For the Nigerian economy to work for Nigerians, it is time to move on from fossil fuels.

What do we want? A clean Niger Delta!

When do we want it: Now!

How can this happen? Stop oil spills. Stop gas flares.

What is our demand? Keep the oil in the ground!

IMG_0377
some chiefs at the rally

Globally, fossil fuels extraction, and use, is the major driver of climate change. Today our weather is unbearably hot. Our waters are so polluted with crude oil that we cannot dive into them to cool our bodies. Some of our rivers and forests even go up in flames.

The water we drink used to be sweet. Today the only sweet thing coming out of our land is so-called sweet crude. It is only sweet to those who do not care about the land, our lives.

I don’t need to remind you about oil spills. The evidence is all over the land. Thousands of oil spill locations are crying out to be cleaned. We don’t talk about it, but hundreds of barrels of produced water are dumped into our water ways daily in the Niger Delta, poisoning our waters and choking throats instead of quenching thirst.

 

Oil extraction has poked holes all over the Niger Delta. Coastlines erosion is eating up the lands of our communities and sea level rise will make this worse. Ask our people at Brass. Ask our people at Koluoama. In addition, our land is sinking! Combine these with the effects of gas flaring and tell me what benefit crude oil has brought to our land, to Nigeria.

We want a clean Niger Delta.

We want Niger Delta to stay clean.

We demand that fossil fuels be kept in the ground.

We insist that we must not wait until the wells run dry

We cannot have a clean Niger Delta if oil spills continue. We cannot have a clean Niger Delta if pipelines keep getting bombed. We cannot have a clean Niger Delta with broken pipelines and without companies maintaining their facilities. We must all join our hands to make fossil fuels history and make this first oil well a monument to the monumental damage caused by fossil fuels.

What do we want? A clean Niger Delta!

How can this happen? Stop oil spills. Stop gas flares.

What is our demand? Keep the oil in the ground!

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Clean Up Our Land Now

By Chief Napoleon Ofiruma

I speak on behalf of the Landlord communities in Ogbia Land on this very special day. I welcome you all to our peaceful land.

Today is special because we have the opportunity to speak out to Nigerians and to the world. Today we can say that when we welcomed oil drilling on our land 60 years ago we had a lot of hopes and now we can boldly say that our hopes have been dashed. After 60 years what have we got from oil? In fact, our hopes have been betrayed and relegated.

..the only oil business in Nigeria should be the business of cleaning up the oil pollution.

As we stand at the very first oil well to be drilled in the Niger Delta, we ask the world to see our situation. The oil well has been sucked dry and abandoned. As the oil well has been abandoned so have we been abandoned.

We realise that our being abandoned and neglected is not all the story. Oil extraction and use has brought a lot of problems to the Nigeria and the world. Today everywhere is hot. The climate is changing. Life is very tough and unbearable.

Crude oil spillages have destroyed our fishing business. They have also destroyed our farms. We demand that oil companies should stop polluting our land. We demand that our land and creeks should be cleaned up urgently. We demand an end to gas flaring. We are tired of diseases and deaths caused by oil pollution.

Welcome to our land. Look around you and help us tell government that oil has brought nothing to us but destruction and death.

Keep It in the Ground

We demand that as government begins to diversify the economy, the only oil business in Nigeria should be the business of cleaning up the oil pollution. That will employ thousands of youths and restore our fisheries and agriculture. We want to return to our fishing business. We want fish and food, not oil.

We join all Nigerians and others in the world to say that our bondage to crude oil is enough. It is time to break free from this bad business. We support your call to leave the oil in the soil and to quench the killing gas flares and the destruction of our flora and fauna.

 

 

 

 

Burning Africa with the Paris Agreement

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The Paris Agreement will see to the sinking of Small Island states and the roasting of Africa – a continent uniquely exposed to the vagaries of global warming. Of what use is it for poor vulnerable nations to smile at the cameras, sign up to do things that will add up to nothing, knowing that they never contributed to the problem in the first instance? What would Nigeria or any African country gain by endorsing this hollow agreement?

What is needed is for the big polluters to line up and sign an agreement to keep fossils in the ground and urgently ensure a just transition to renewable energy. That is when we will know that there is a climate agreement. Signing the Paris Agreement on Earth Day (22 April 2016) is a poking of fossil fingers in our collective faces and an affront to Mother Earth.

Signing the Paris Agreement is nothing but letting the polluters off the hook, and burning the innocent to boot. It is time to keep fossils in the ground. Addictions may be hard to break, but for our survival, it is time to break free from fossil fuels.

The achievement of the Paris conference was that all nations agreed to take some sort of climate action. This means little if what they promise to do are mere intentions rather than scientifically determined levels of emissions reduction based on their current levels of greenhouse gas emissions as well as on historical responsibility.

The expected climate actions are based on Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). These INDCs as the name suggests are what each country proposes to do about cutting their emissions. Many of the countries have stated that they would only take certain actions based on some conditions such as availability of finance and technology.

Particularly worrisome is the fact that the world has already warmed up by 1 degree Celsius above pre industrial levels. If all the nations put their INDCs into action, average global temperatures will rise above 3 degrees Celsius, according to analysts. That would be beyond the tipping point by which the world would cascade into irreversible or cataclysmic climate and ecological change.

The Paris Agreement locks in fossil fuels and, to underscore corporate capture of the negotiations, the word, fossil, is not as much as mention the document. It is shocking that although the burning of fossil fuels is known to be a major contributor to global warming, climate negotiations engage in platitudes rather than going to the core of the problem. Scientists tell us that burning of fossil fuels would have to end by 2030 if there would be a chance of keeping temperature increase to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. The signal we get from the silence on the fossils factor is that oil and coal companies can continue to extract profit while burning the planet.

The agreement is hollow with regard to climate finance because raising necessary funds remains aspirational while rich nations spend trillions of US dollars on war efforts that deepen climate vulnerability of target nations and regions. Loss and damage from irreparable climate impacts remain the imposed burdens that vulnerable nations will continue to suffer.

Signing the Paris Agreement is nothing but letting the polluters off the hook, and burning the innocent to boot. It is time to keep fossils in the ground. Addictions may be hard to break, but for our survival, it is time to break free from fossil fuels.

In Defence of Life – a new Documentary by Gaia Foundation

In Defence of Life“It’s about grabbing a part of the Earth and placing a mark of ownership on something that actually owns you. It doesn’t add up.”

In this interview poet, Earth Defender and Right Livelihood Award Winner Nnimmo Bassey challenges the assumptions at the very root of the mining industry- that we need to and should mine more. Discussing the vast damage and poverty oil extraction has brought to his home country of Nigeria, Nnimmo argues that even the most ‘responsible’ mining operations leave behind irreparable harm. His message is that, though it seems unthinkable to many, we must move away from an extractive relationship with the planet. Watch Nnimmo’s interview here: vimeo.com/155553521

This interview accompanies In Defence of Life, a documentary that follows the trials and triumphs of four communities fighting back against mining giants. Watch it here: vimeo.com/162669257

Filmed by Jess Phillimore
Edited by Joseph Lambert
For The Gaia Foundation

From Gaia Foundation

Oil, Power & Pollution in South Sudan

Oil, Power and a Sign of Hope coverOil, Power and A Sign of Hope is a book about oil, speed, corporate power and death. It is not about the oil pollution in the Niger Delta. It is rather about the severe pollution of the ground water in the oil field communities of South Sudan. And the pollution is from the contamination of the water bodies by produced water that is generated during crude oil extraction.

It may well be true as has been asserted by some observers that the Sudan was split in two by oil. The fact that oil is at the centre of geopolitics, of global dominance and control is indisputable. It is also a fact that crude oil’s footprint on climate change cannot be denied. In fact, analysts have concluded that the world has to completely halt the burning of fossil fuels by 2030 if the target of keeping to 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature increase above pre industrial level, a highlight of the Paris Agreement, is to be met. The control of global policy on climate change by the fossil fuels industry is so strong that this known villain is not mentioned even once in the Paris Agreement that the politicians have applauded and are getting ready to sign in a few days.

Written by Klaus Stieglitz (with Sabine Pamperrien) and published by ruffer & rub, the book, Oil, Power and a Sign of Hope raises very strong issues regarding the linkage between oil corporations (in this case Petronas), automobile corporations (in this case Mercedes) and the destruction of lives in the oil fields of South Sudan. Mercedes and Petronas are partners in the Grand Prix events with their logos announcing their wedlock.

Written with deep compassion after spending many years providing humanitarian service in the polluted communities, the writer exposes the misery and harm that oil field communities are exposed to while corporations enjoy extreme wealth while feeding the world’s insatiable thirst for energy, speed and profit. It shows that produced water and drilling fluids are key sources of contamination of the water communities depend on.

An excerpt from the book is in order here:

The extremely great potential dangers emanating from the use of chemicals in drill drilling fluids cause it to be strictly regulated by internationally-applicable guidelines. Augmenting this peril is another technique employed when extracting oil. Highly- concentrated salts-containing solutions are injected into the oil deposits, so as to increase the pressure in them. The crude oil and the previously-injected salts-containing solutions are pumped to the surface, where the crude oil is separated from the so-called “produced water”. The extraction of each liter of crude oil requires the employment of from 3 to 9.5 liters of produced water ― an incredible amount. This produced water often has a higher content of salt than does ocean water. The produced water also often contains noxious metals and radioactive materials. The general practice is to inject the produced water―via another injection hole―deep enough into the ground, with this meaning its being transported to layers of rocks that are far away from potable water. Should, however, the produced water be disposed of via in-feeds into surface waters, or via shallow drilling into layers containing ground water, the risk arises that this polluted water will―via wells―be incorporated into humans’ food cycle. (Page 58)

Although oil companies claim otherwise, researches have shown that produced water dumped into the Niger Delta environment have contaminants at levels far above acceptable standards. Lax regulation compounds the problem. Hundreds of thousands of barrels of produced water are dumped into the Niger Delta environment daily. Since the amount of water used in oil extraction increases as the wells age, more produced water is being dumped into our water ways as the years go by.

Oil, Power and a Sign of Hope is wake up call, not only for South Sudan, but for all African nations where crude oil is extracted or is set to be extracted. While oil spills and gas flares take the headlines, little is said about the produced water that finds its way into our food cycles and silently breeds disease and clips off life expectancy in our communities. This book is not written to make us moan and sigh. It is clarion call for us all to wake up, reject mindless exploitation, demand justice and fight for the right to potable water, and for the right of all peoples to live in dignity and in healthy environments. The water we drink should quench our thirst and not snuff out our lives. Here is one more reason why we must break free from fossil fuels.