For over two decades, Nnimmo Bassey has been in the vanguard, fighting selflessly against environmental pollution in Nigeria and demanding environmental justice and rights for the people. Recognition however came the way of the Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action and former Chairman of Friends of the Earth International recently, as his efforts were rewarded with Rafto Prize award in Begern, Norway...

RECENTLY, the Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action and Coordinator of Oilwatch International, Mr. Nnimmo Bassey, made history when he became the first Nigerian and fifth African to win the Rafto Prize in far away Norway.

Rafto Prize is a human rights award established in the memory of Norwegian human rights activist, Thorolf Rafto, who was a professor of Economic History at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration.

By winning the award, Bassey may have begun his journey to becoming the first Nigerian to win a Nobel Peace Prize. Four Rafto Laureates have subsequently received further international assistance and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Aung San Suu Kyi, Jose Ramos-Horta, Kim Dae-jung and Shirin Ebadi were awarded the Rafto Prize prior to receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.

The 2012 Rafto Prize was awarded to Bassey in recognition of his long-term fight for people’s rights to life, health, food and water in a world affected by climate change and mass environmental destruction.

A trained architect and former Chairman of Friends of the Earth, Bassey, explains how he delved into human and environmental rights activism. “A lot of forces are responsible. My entry into environmental activism began imperceptibly but surely. As a teenager, I was deeply aware of the cold war and many human rights struggles in various parts of the world, especially the civil rights struggles in the U.S. and the fight against apartheid in South Africa. At the same time, there was growing despotism in Africa - the assassination of inspiring leaders amidst liberation struggles. These both inspired and outraged me as a young person. Not to mention the sad days of military rule in Nigeria. In the quest for emancipation of our yoked peoples, I joined the human rights movement in Nigeria and eventually was elected to the board of the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO).

“The turning point came when it dawned on me that the horrendous human rights abuses in places like the Niger Delta had strong environmental conflict basis. The alliance of the Nigerian security forces with the multinational oil companies – wholesale destruction of villages, wanton killings, rapes and so on- finally got me set on the path of fighting for environmental justice as a human right. The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, which I headed, was formally set up 20 years ago as an avenue for this struggle,” the 2010 co-winner of the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize, says.

According to Bassey, while Nigeria’s environmental challenges are mountainous in outlook, the nation’s response is grossly deficient. “The Nigerian environment can be said to be an environment that is virtually comatose. We have major challenges everywhere, ranging from massive erosion in the Eastern flank from Kogi to Akwa Ibom states to desertification across eleven Northern states.

“Furthermore, grave pollutants and deforestation generally stare us in the face across the South. There is largely uncontrolled industrial pollution of surface and ground water across the nation. The pollution of the Niger Delta tops it all. The situation is so dire that one cannot imagine what the situation would have been if courageous people like the late Ken Saro-Wiwa had not spoken up when they did,” he says.

Bassey continues: “Handling of filth from solid waste ought to be a simple environmental challenge. It has, however, become a huge mountain in Nigeria due to inadequate planning and focus. Plastics and all manner of wastes litter the nation and our management of these is grossly deficient. Where organised at all, disposal is in unlined pits from which pollutants leach into our ground water. The lack of planned handling of environmental problems, including the ineffective monthly sanitation exercises, builds into the public psyche a very poor sense of responsibility. Do we need to speak of the pollution from vehicular traffic on our streets? What about the fact that even the best paint made in Nigeria has some of the highest levels of lead than is found anywhere else in the world? Another issue confronting us in Nigeria is the creeping in of genetic contamination and erosion through the illegal introduction of genetically modified crops ostensibly to fight vitamin A deficiency and for other spurious reasons - whereas government agencies are just playing servants to corporate and external political interests.”

Having neglected its environmental challenges, Nigeria, the environmental rights activist thinks, may not be able to realise the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). “The health of the environment can be used to gauge the health of any nation. Where development is a measure of wellbeing and not superficial economic indicators favoured by international financial institutions, the link between the health of the environment and the state of the nation becomes very stark. Poverty thrives in a poorly managed environment where people cannot safely engage in livelihood activities like farming and fishing. ‘’

Bassey, who authored the classic, We Thought It Was Oil But It Was Blood, thinks the Federal Government is only playing the ostrich in implementing the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) report in Ogoniland.

“The fact that the Niger Delta is one of the most polluted places on earth and the handling of the UNEP report are shameful realities on Nigeria. That report was presented to President Jonathan on August 4, 2011. It clearly showed that there was an emergency situation in Ogoniland, but it took a whole year before the FG made any tangible response to the report. Even that step of setting up the Hydro-carbons Restoration Project (HYPREP) can be said to be tentative.

“We can ignore the anachronistic name, but there are many other things we cannot ignore about that agency. For a start, it is domiciled in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, a major culprit in the pollution of Ogoniland and the entire Niger Delta environment. Clearly for effective handling of processes and activities needed to restore the Ogoni environment, that agency should be under the Federal Ministry of Environment.”