Communique Issued At The End Of The 2nd Nigeria Socio-Ecological Alternatives Convergence Held At Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre Abuja Nigeria On Monday 14th July 2025

Concerned with the escalating ecological threats in the country, Health of Mother Earth Foundation in collaboration with We the People, Environmental Rights Action/ Friends of the Earth Nigeria, Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, Social Action, CAPPA and OilWatch Africa organized a one-day National Socio-Ecological Alternatives Convergence in Abuja Nigeria on Monday 14th July 2025. The Convergence which was the second in a series that started in 2024 sought to create a platform for stakeholders including those from the government, civil society, academia, social movements, and communities to share knowledge and engage in meaningful dialogue and partnership on the overarching ecological issues and socio-economic challenges affecting Nigerian communities. The Convergence also aimed to develop a strategy for improving policy and providing a multi-stakeholder roadmap to addressing the lingering socio-ecological crises. Participants at the Convergence included international delegates from Benin, Togo, Senegal, Mali, Ghana, Liberia, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone and the USA. The participation of international activists and campaigners underscored the collective concern that the global ecological threat throws up, and the need for solidarity, partnership and collaboration in tackling them.
Among others, the Convergence featured lectures, panel discussions, debates, solidarity messages and review of the Nigeria Socioecological Alternatives Charter. It emphasized strategies for combating peculiar challenges of pollution, oceanification, desertification, erosion and flooding, climate change, just transition, the underlying issues and nexuses around exploration and exploitation of solid minerals, oil and gas, agriculture, conflict and insecurities, etc.
The Convergence observed the following:
· That Nigeria faces a litany of ecological challenges as a result of aggressive oil and gas extraction, mining for solid minerals, deforestation, climate change and its fallouts. And that despite these challenges, governments at all levels have not demonstrated willingness to address these issues and ameliorate the suffering and threats faced by the people.
· That there is an intersection between the myriads of ecological issues facing the country and social issues such as poverty, conflict, migration and food insecurity.
· That the lack of resource democracy in Nigeria has meant that communities are not consulted as right holders in resource extraction, neither are they considered key in developing responses to ecological issues and climate change.
· That indeed, communities are custodians of indigenous governance and conservation practices, which government can integrate into environmental resource management and sustainability programmes, but are not considered by government in the formulation of ecological laws and policies.
· That the Nigerian state has failed to hold corporations accountable for their damaging ecological footprints, neither are they held responsible for decommissioning after their extractive activities.
· That the Nigerian state has often sacrificed ecological wellbeing on the altar of increased economic revenues, therefore treating the environment as another disposable source of generating economic wealth.
· That Nigeria’s socio-ecological challenges are exacerbated by the lack of political will, exclusion and limited participation of citizens, short-term thinking and lack of foresight, not accounting for structural deficits and the lack of integration and coordination.
· That many of Nigeria’s environmental and climate change policies are inadequate to address socio-ecological challenges and are usually lacking in cross-cutting themes such as gender, and social inclusion.
· That there are clear disconnects between national and sub-national policies due to exclusion and blind spots in policy formulation.
· That varying priorities, conflicting regulatory frameworks, misaligned targets and contradictory provisions are visible gaps impeding the implementation of national climate change and environmental policies.
· That although Nigeria is signatory to several international environmental treaties and conventions, it has failed to commit to their domestication due to lack of political will and poor policy coordination
Based on the forgoing, the Convergence made the following resolutions and demands:
1. To address drought and desertification, the government must aggressively pursue afforestation and reforestation initiatives, environmentally sustainable land management, and supporting community adaptation strategies.
2. Policies must be put in place to protect wetlands, while the government must implement measures for flood control to reduce the avoidable impacts of this recurring ecological threat on the people.
3. The government must demonstrate through its policies an understanding of the nexus between oil and gas extraction and the rising threat of climate change and establish frameworks to deliberately reduce the country’s fossil extraction footprints.
4. To reduce impacts of mining operations in the country, the country must enforce mining regulations, seek the free, prior and informed consent of affected indigenous people, and enforce adequate decommissioning of mining sites and declaration of no mining zones.
5. To mitigate the ecological brunt on Niger Delta people and communities due to oil and gas extraction, an ecological audit of the region must be conducted. The ongoing divestment process must be completed only when accountability has been established.
6. Job transitioning, environmental remediation, adequate compensation, inclusion and improving access to clean energy must core facet of the implementation of Nigeria’s energy transition policy.
7. The government must protect reserve areas, increase support for small-holder farmers, encourage the transition to agroecology and promote biodiversity conservation and ecosystem restoration.
8. That the country must respect the Rights of Nature and assign personality and value to critical environmental assets and improving our handling of these environmental assets as examples of Ecuador, Bolivia, Ethiopia and South Africa have typified.
9. The Nigeria government must jettison the promotion of false solutions to climate change such as REDD+, blue carbon, etc. which result in capturing of valuable rivers, forests and other ecological assets.
10. The Nigerian government should immediately ban all Genetically Modified Organisms in our food systems.
This Communique is endorsed by the following organizations:
1. Health of Mother Earth Foundation
2. We the People
3. Oilwatch Africa
4. CAPPA
5. Social Action