Niger Delta environment deeply polluted – Nnimmo Bassey

A renowned environmentalist, Dr Nnimmo Bassey, has decried the severe state of pollution in the Niger Delta area, calling for urgent action to address the menace and build a resilient future.

Bassey, who holds a National Honours of Member of Order of the Federal Republic for Environmental Activism, made this known on Wednesday at the Niger Delta Climate Conference in Port Harcourt.

The environmentalist, who was a keynote speaker at the event, focused on the theme: Building a Resilient Future: Climate Action and Community Empowerment.

He said: “When we speak of building a resilient future, we have to look at the environment in which we live and examine the state of that environment.

“What are the living conditions for humans and other beings that we share the planet with?

“The Niger Delta is a deeply polluted environment, a deeply degraded territory, one of the worst polluted places on the planet,” he said.

According to him, researches have confirmed this sad reality.

The activist noted that the Environmental Assessment of Ogoni land issued by United Nations Environment Program in 2021 clearly shows the pollution of Ogoni, the land, water, and air.

“In some places, hydrocarbons have penetrated the soil up to 5 meters. By the time the cleanup started, pollution had sunk as deep as 10 meters,” Bassey said.

He recalled that in 2023 the Bayesian State Oil and Environment Commission, issued a report entitled An Environmental Genocide, Counting the Human and Environmental Cost of Oil in Bayelsa, Nigeria.

“Now, when we speak of environmental genocide, we have to understand this by looking at what genocide itself means. Genocide is an intentional attack and annihilation of a people, ethnic cleansing.

“An environmental genocide can also be termed ecocide.

“It happens when there’s an intentional and persistent destruction of a particular environment, as has been the case of the Niger Delta over the last 68 years,” Bassey said.

According to him, the Niger Delta is a territory that the inhabitants are literally the “living dead” due to horrific environmental degradation.

Bassey said that Bayelsa has 40 per cent of mangrove forests gone and there is 1.5 barrels of crude oil spilled per capita.

He explained that about 14 million cubic meters of natural gas is flared every day at 17 facilities in Bayelsa alone.

This, he said, released toxic elements into the air and caused cancers, breathing illnesses and acid rain.

He further noted that oil related contaminants such as chromium are present in groundwater at a level 1000 times beyond the World Health Organization limit.

NAN