Stakeholders in the Niger Delta have called on all levels of government and multinational oil companies to end the “criminal neglect” of the region, citing the persistent gas flaring and environmental degradation.
The call was made on Friday in Benin City during an event titled “Poetry Day With Prof Tanure Ojaide on Environment and Culture,” organized by the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF).
Executive Director of HOMEF, Rev. Nnimmo Bassey, and renowned poet and scholar Prof. Tanure Ojaide, alongside other academics including Dr. Bode Ekundayo, emphasized the urgent need for sincere development efforts in the oil-rich Niger Delta.
Prof. Ojaide, winner of the 2018 Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa, expressed deep disappointment over the government’s and multinational firms’ handling of the region’s environmental crises.
“Top officials of the oil companies and the Federal Government must be honest, truthful, and genuinely concerned about the development of the Niger Delta,” he said.
Ojaide stressed that restoring and repairing the communities of the Niger Delta should be a top priority, calling on all Nigerians to actively support efforts towards environmental protection.
“Let us make the environment better, safer, and more conducive. Environmental struggle and justice are lifelong battles; we must not get tired,” Ojaide urged. He praised HOMEF for championing environmental restoration, climate justice, and food sovereignty efforts across Nigeria and Africa.
He also emphasized the need for ecological literacy, noting that widespread environmental awareness would lead to a safer, healthier world.
Earlier, Rev. Nnimmo Bassey decried the extensive damage done to Niger Delta communities by foreign corporations and lamented that many of the environmental abuses inflicted in Nigeria would not be tolerated in the polluters’ home countries.
“The environment’s destruction erodes life expectancy,” Bassey said.
“Pollution is a direct result of the current definition of ‘development’ and ‘growth.’ It is time to end the criminal neglect of the Niger Delta.”
Bassey added that true justice would involve holding polluters accountable through continuous reparations until the environment is fully restored.
“The polluters must not only pay but must continue to pay until the land is healed. They must also pay for the suffering endured by the people whose environment was stolen,” he said.
