2.9 As predicted by the Bayelsa State Commissioner for Information , it was reported on the 16th of December 2021 that the spill had advanced to the Abureni kingdom in Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State. The crude was reported to have been seen floating on their river with an unbearable stench coming therefrom.
The Denouement of the Injustice
2.10 It is now common knowledge that the damage caused to the environment by the recurring cases of oil spillage and the seemingly untameable gas flaring, has resulted to the communities’ economic woes considering that our people are predominantly fishermen, farmers and traders. Huge swathes of fragile wetlands have been destroyed or put at risk; water courses that local people rely on for fishing have been contaminated; and farmland has been tainted. There is an ongoing environmental genocide against our communities.
2.11 The health of the people have also been adversely affected as gas flaring has been reported to be responsible for various health crisis. Oil spillages and blowout oil have also been reported to constitute other major pollutants of the environment. According to a report compiled and commissioned by the Blacksmith Institute and Green Cross Switzerland in 2013, the Niger/Delta region is one of the top ten most polluted places in the world.
2.12 I seek to capture the gory state of our present community through the stories of some of the inhabitants of the communities making up Bayelsa State as published by the Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission in 2019.
2.12.1 May I first present to you the voices of our people from Nembe LGA as captured by this lone voice:
The land no longer supports farming as crops do not grow any more. Some species of fish have disappeared from the rivers of the community.
When it rains, we used to catch water, but this is no longer the case as when you collect rainwater it is filled with chemical sand and black objects.
2.12.2 According to a woman from Brass LGA, As a young girl, we used boats to go to the forest to pick periwinkles and to kill crabs, prawns, crayfish and oysters. But when I got to secondary school, all we see is oil in the forest. As the water flows, it takes the crude oil everywhere. No more periwinkles to pick again. No more crabs at the river. What is happening to our creeks? We can’t see marine animals at the nets. My grandmother told me that the oil from Agip has spoilt the rivers and has killed all the fish. What will I tell my children?
2.12.3 Another from Brass LGA stated thus:
We, the women of this island, we do not have to teach our children about our livelihoods. We can no longer teach them how to pick periwinkle. Even the crabs cannot be found again. All our children see is crude oil flowing into the creeks and farms and rivers. The bitter leaves and pepper that we plant are not growing again.
2.12.4 Then another from Brass LGA:
As Akassa people we are suffering…I am in my early 40s, our livelihood is fishing. As we are growing up things became worse. Our lives are not improving. Akassa people, there are crude oil points, and when the pipeline is bad, the whole place is uprooted and made barren. We cannot boast of a house with a closet/water. When we were young, we saw white and colourful birds.
They fished in the night and assembled to our place. But now you cannot count of one. They have all fled. Government is not helping matters.
2.13 According to the Commission, Oil contamination has tainted the farmland people grow their food on, the water they drink and fish in and even the very air they breathe.
The health implications have been complex, and often devastating.
For instance, research has found that people living near pollution sites have been progressively exposed to elevated levels of heavy metals such as chromium, lead and mercury in their blood stream, leading to increased risk of diseases ranging from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases to cancer, diabetes and kidney damage.
The contamination of crops and fish by oil spills has been shown to increase the outbreak of diarrhea in Bayelsa and the bioaccumulation of heavy metals in food as well as affecting food quality.
The presence of oil has also resulted in a substantial increase in the prevalence of childhood malnutrition in the affected communities. More broadly, evidence from across Nigeria suggests that high levels of pollution have also contributed to significant increases in child mortality.
Research has also highlighted that communities living near oil impacted areas frequently consume drinking water with high levels of pollution.”
Why do we consider all these acts of injustice?
2.14 We have not designated the foregoing desolation, dispiriting and dreary existing state of affairs in our communities injustice merely because they constitute violation of all known moral rights which people with dissenting voice could term subjective; it is injustice because they constitute acts of gross violation of the fundamental rights of the communities, of the people as codified in our laws, to wit: our grundnorm which is the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (CFRN) and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, domesticated as the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act (“the Charter”).
2.15 The rights include:
i. Right to life – Section 33(1) of the CFRN and Article 4 of the Charter.
ii. Right to respect for the dignity of his person – Section 34(1) of the CFRN and Article 5 of the Charter.
iii. Right to physical and mental health – Article 16(1) of the Charter.
iv. Right to economic, social and cultural development – Article 22 of 34 the Charter.
v. Right to a general satisfactory environment – Article 24 of the Charter.
2.16 As stated by the Court of Appeal in the case of Salihu v. Gana:The human rights law of Nigeria is contained, inter alia, in two major documents. These are the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, domesticated as the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act, Cap 10 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1990.
The 1999 Constitution guarantees what are called Fundamental Rights in its Chapter IV and the rights it enshrines are largely the traditional civil and political (libertarian) rights and freedoms. It is the duty of the court to protect these rights – Igwe Vs Ezeanochie supra. The Appellant predicated his application before the Lower Court on his rights to personal liberty, freedom of association and privacy which he said were guaranteed under the provisions of sections 35, 42 and 37 respectively of the 1999 Constitution.
2.17 Right to Life
2.17.1 By virtue of Section 33(1) of the CFRN, every Nigerian has, as a fundamental right, right to life. According to the subsection,
“Every person has a right to life, and no one shall be deprived intentionally of his life, save in execution of the sentence of a court in respect of a criminal offence of which he has been found guilty in Nigeria.”
2.17.2 Before I proceed to elucidate on the scope of the right to life, may I quickly state that the clause, “Every person has a right to life”, is complete in itself and its definition is not tied to or derivable from the second and following clause, “no one shall be deprived intentionally of his life, save in execution of the sentence of a court in respect of a criminal offence of which he has been found guilty in Nigeria.” In other words, the provision, “Every person has a right to life” should not be construed in the light of the second statement which relates to the killing of a man, that is, the cessation of breath and thereby subjecting its interpretation to the narrow definition of life as merely breathing. The second limb of the subsection is rather an additional provision under that subsection. To further put in other words, the first limb is not tied to or dependent on the second limb, it is rather the second limb that is tied to the first. Therefore, “right to life” as enshrined in Section 33 of the CFRN is not synonymous with “right to breathe”. The mere fact that a man is breathing does not necessarily mean that the man is enjoying his human and fundamental right to life.
2.17.3 What then is “right to life”? The “life” contemplated in Section
33(1) necessarily entails the following, amongst others:
i. right to live a quality life;
ii. right to pollution-free air;
iii. right to toxic-free environment;
iv. right to toxic-free water;
v. right to toxic-free food (both aquatic and terrestrial food);
vi. right to health (both physical and mental health);
vii. right to livelihood; and
viii. right to anything a man needs to live a good and quality life.
2.17.4 Conversely, anything that deprives or has the potency to deprive a man of any of the above “life” is an actual breach or threatened breach of the man’s right to life as guaranteed under the CFRN and the Charter.
2.17.5 That this assertion is correct and that the Courts have embraced a broader and more liberal interpretation of the “right to life” contemplated and guaranteed by the CFRN and the Charter to include the above-itemised rights or “life”, as against a very narrow interpretation, can be seen in the case of Gbemre v Shell Petroleum Development Company Ltd
. The Federal High Court had, in that case, held to the effect that the constitutionally guaranteed right to life, amongst the other rights, “inevitably include the right to clean, poison-free, pollution-free healthy environment.”
2.17.6 The germane questions at this juncture are:
i. Has there been Gas flaring in the Niger-Delta Region?
ii. Has there been oil spillage (on the farmlands and surrounding seas/waters thus affecting both crops and aquatic life)?
iii. Has there been discharge of toxic effluent more particularly
through the canal at the Brass Oil Export Terminal?
iv. Has there been a blowout at Nembe creek resulting in humongous despoliation of the environment?
2.17.7 The next question therefore is: do those incidences engender a clean, pollution-free, toxic-free and/or healthy life and environment or do they endanger the life guaranteed by the Constitution and the Charter? The answer is clearly the latter.
2.17.8 Akin to the right to life, is right to a clean environment because a clean and healthy environment is what makes for a good and quality life. The wealth and well-being of man and his environment are closely intertwined but with the latter incontestably determining the fate of the former. I make bold to say that it was for this purpose that Section 20 of the CFRN expressly makes it the duty of the Government to protect the environment and to safeguard the water, air and land.
2.17.9 According to Article 24 of the Charter, “All peoples shall have the right to a general satisfactory environment favourable to their development.” An environment ladened with: toxic substances from the effluent that escapes from the operation sites of the companies carrying on business in the areas; toxic pollutants such as sulphur dioxide, etc, being the environment the inhabitants of the Brass and Nembe and other communities have been subjected to, is not a satisfactory one and surely not “favourable to their development”.
2.17.10 The kind of environment the people are subjected to by reason of the activities of the oil and gas companies and the inaction of the Government constitutes a fundamental threat to the people’s right to life and their right to “enjoy the best attainable state of physical and mental health” as guaranteed by Article 16(1) of the Charter because the kind of life they live is determined by the kind of environment they inhabit; and this is a recognised fact.
According to the International Court of Justice, a Court whose
compulsory jurisdiction Nigeria has long accepted, in its Advisory Opinion of 8 July 2006, “environment” “is not an abstraction but represents the living space, the quality of life and the very health of human beings, including generations unborn”.
2.17.11 The quality of a man’s life is a direct product of the environment he lives in hence a man inhabiting a polluted environment will, of a surety, live a polluted, defective, sickly, and/or distorted life; and cannot, in any way or manner, “enjoy the best attainable state of physical and mental health”. The effect may not be immediately visible but the damage to the health and life of the people has been done and is daily being done. According to the World Health Organization, 23 per cent of all deaths are linked to “environmental risks” like air pollution, water contamination and chemical exposure; 9 in 10 people across the globe are breathing unclean air, harming their health and shortening their life span; every year, about 7 million people die from diseases and infections related to air pollution, more than five times the number of people who perish in road traffic collisions.
The WHO further confirms that exposure to pollutants can also affect the brain, causing developmental delays, behavioural problems and even lower IQs in children; and that pollutants are associated with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases in older people.
2.18 Other Rights
2.18.1 A polluted and poisoned environment is also:
i. a threat to the people’s right to “their economic, social and cultural development” as guaranteed in Article 22 of the Charter;
ii. a threat to their right to “respect of the dignity inherent in a human being and to the recognition of his legal status” as a citizen of the Federal Republic of Nigeria whose fundamental rights are guaranteed in the CFRN (Article 5 of the Charter and Section 34(1) of the CFRN); and
iii. inhuman and will lead to a degradation of the life guaranteed by the CFRN. (Section 34(1)(a) of the CFRN and Article 5 of the Charter). As rightly stated in the case of Attorney-General & Commissioner of Justice, Kebbi State v. HRH, Alhaji AlMustapha Jokolo & Ors:
The learned authors of Black’s Law Dictionary, 9th edition, page 854 also define “Inhumantreatment” as “Physical or mental cruelty so severe that it endangers life or health.” Adegrading treatment is to do unpleasant thingsto someone and to make him lose self-respect.
Thus “degradation” is “1. A reduction in rank, degree, or dignity… a lessening of a person’s or thing’s character or quality… A wearing down of something, as by erosion.” See Black’s Law Dictionary (supra), page 488.
2.18.2 Subjecting the people to such inhuman and toxic environment evinces a total disregard for the dignity of the people and an utter reduction of the people’s dignity to nothing. On the authority of the case of Attorney-General & Commissioner of Justice, Kebbi State v. HRH, Alhaji Al-Mustapha Jokolo & Ors, I make no hesitation in asserting that the previous and current activities of the oil and gas companies in our communities endanger the lives and health of our people, and are lessening their quality as human beings. The lives of the inhabitants of our communities are wearing down and losing quality because our environment, food, water and the air our inhale are all toxic.
2.18.3 A contaminated and polluted environment does not only impair their “right to life”, it hinders their economic and social development as people can no longer farm and/or fish (and thus depriving them of their only sources of livelihood, with no access to potable water – both rainwater and borehole water which have become toxic. The people are thus deprived of quality life (bodily, mental, social and economic life).
2.18.4 If the activities of the oil and gas companies in our communities from ages past till age present do not constitute a breach to our people’s rights to life, to a clean and safe environment, to best attainable physical and mental health, to economic and social development, to freedom from degradation, what then, we pray, do those activities constitute in relation to our people in the environment surrounding the sites of the companies’ activities?
2.18.5 The actions and/or omissions of all the parties involved have reduced the dignity of the people and their quality of life, and this in law is tantamount to “degradation” which the Constitution stipulates the people have a right to be free from.
2.18.6 It is in view of the foregoing that I dare state without any tittle of ambivalence that the activities of the oil and gas companies and the indolence of the State in sanctioning them and stopping their activities pending when they ensure the safety of our people and our environment amount to a breach of our people’s rights as enumerated above; and thereby calling for justice.
3.0 THE STATE
3.1 The precarious situation in which our people have found themselves is that our own Government has been complicit. Our Government has, by its action and/or omission, deprived the people of the aforementioned rights and thereby occasioning injustice to its citizenry.
3.2 May I quickly remind us that the Charter was domesticated pursuant to the undertaken of the Nigerian State under Article 1 of the Charter to “adopt legislative or other measures to give effect” to the provisions of the Charter.
3.3 The President, who is the head of the Government at the centre has a constitutional duty to ensure that the provisions of the Charter are executed to the letter, and nothing short. By virtue of Section 5(1) of the CFRN, Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, the executive powers of the Federation:
(a) shall be vested in the President and may subject as aforesaid and to the provisions of any law made by the National Assembly, be exercised by him either directly or through the Vice-President and Ministers of the Government of the Federation or officers in the public service of the Federation; and
(b) shall extend to the execution and maintenance of this Constitution, all laws made by the National Assembly and to all matters with respect to which the National Assembly has, for the time being, power to make laws.
3.4 In what appears to be an attempt at ensuring that our people achieve environmental justice, there has been proliferation of agencies but paucity of exploits – prodigious in number but wretched in quality services. The agencies include the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (FEPA), National Environmental Standards and Regulation Enforcement Agency (NESREA), and the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), in addition to their parent body, the Federal Ministry of Environment which has a Department known as Department of Pollution Control and Environmental Health. We must also state that even our own Stateshave Ministries of Environment.
3.5 All those bodies have been saddled with the responsibility and duty of ensuring that we attain justice in relation to our environment and they must realise the momentousness, cruciality and, of course, the exigency of their assigned tasks. This position was stated quite succinctly by the apex Court in the case of Centre for Oil Pollution Watch v. N.N.P.C. thus: It cannot be denied that there are legislations and agencies specifically put in place to address issues of environmental degradation such, as the National Environmental Standards and Regulation Enforcement Agency (Establishment)Act, 2007 (NESREA Act), which provides, inter alia, for the enforcement of compliance with laws, guidelines, policies and standards on environmental matters, the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Act and the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) created to detect and respond to oil spillage within the National Territory. There are also State environmental laws and agencies. The issue that arises is what is the remedy of persons affected or likely to be affected by the effect of the environmental degradation where the statutory agencies fail to carry out their responsibilities or where the land belongs to no one in particular, as in this case, but the effect of the pollution extends far beyond the immediate environment?
Section 33 of the 1999 Constitution guarantees the right to life while section 20 of the Constitution provides that “the State shall protect and improve the environment and safeguard the water, air and land, forest and wild life of the country”.
See also: Article 24 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which provides “All people shall have the right to a general satisfactory environment favourable to their development”.
These provisions show that the Constitution, the legislature and the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, to which Nigeria is a signatory, recognize the fundamental rights of the citizenry to a clean and healthy environment to sustain life.
Acting on the principle that their country’s commitment to international law and treaty obligations to protect their environment, the Indian Supreme Court has been consistent in holding that the responsibility of the State to protect environment is now a well-accepted notion in all countries. And that it is this notion, in international law, that gave rise to the principle of “state responsibility” to prevent pollution in its own territory.
The natural resources of the earth, including the air, water, land, flora and fauna and especially representative samples of natural ecosystems, must be strengthened for the benefit of the present and future generations through careful planning and management, as appropriate.
(Underlining mine for emphasis.)
3.6 The Government of the Federation therefore has no reason whatsoever not to ensure the observance of the provisions of the Charter in relation to the right of our people to a healthy environment.
4.0 CONCLUSION
4.1 As I close, I ask again: what are we surrounded by – riverine, estuarine and the ocean or (agents of) death?
4.2 We are our environment and our environment is us. Our environment has, however, been hijacked from us and our lives taken away from us; and, in their stead, sicknesses, diseases and death have been handed out to us by the players in the oil and gas industry, with our lives gravely imperilled by the very State which has been saddled with the fundamental responsibility of protecting our environment and safeguarding our air, water and land. Our people have become mere numbers required for election into the offices of the State at every election year, not lives to be protected against the dangers and evils surrounding our environment.
4.3 We are not asking for favour by heralding our yearnings for environmental justice; we are only asking that our rights, as enshrined in the laws of the land and in the various Treaties the State is signatory to, be effectuated in a manner that is manifestly seen to have been done. That is true justice! Justice is giving the people what is due to them, and injustice is depriving them of what is due to them. Our environment is in this horrendous state not for want of adequate laws; it is as a result of failure on the part of those in whose hands our lives have been entrusted. There has been a grave injury done to our people in utter violation of the known laws of the land; there must, therefore be a remedy because ubi jus ibi remedium.
4.4 Regardless of the economic benefits the State may be deriving from the activities of the oil and gas industries, or whatever laws that permit the companies to carry on their operations, the right of the people to quality life, physical and mental wellbeing, safe and satisfactory environment, and economic and social development is sacrosanct and reigns supreme over all other benefits; and, being a creation of the Constitution, the right enjoys the same supremacy the Constitution enjoys and is thus superior to all other rights conferred on the companies to carry on their operations which portend danger to the people in the surrounding environment. That being the case, those other rights, being subservient to the people’s fundamental rights, must give way to the fundamental rights of the people the same way all other laws which derogate from the Constitution must give way to the provisions of the supreme law of the land. That was the position taken by the Court in the case of Tolani v. Kwara State Judicial Service Commission & Ors where the appellate Court per Denton-West, J.C.A had stated very strongly as follows:
Consequently, the courts guard these fundamental human rights very jealously. Therefore law or Act that is perpetrated against the provisions of the fundamental rights of any individual which is against the spirit of the constitution would not be allowed to stand. The spirit of the constitution must stand firm at all times and to ensure that this is done, the superior courts have constantly held in a plethora of cases that the human rights of the individual should on no account be subsumed or swept under the carpet in favour of other laws no matter how well pivoted that law may be.
5.0
RECOMMENDATION
5.1 The Federal Republic of Nigeria which is not only signatory to the various Charters and Treaties which guarantee the rights of the Niger Delta people, but is also saddled with the obligation of ensuring that the fundamental rights of the people, as enshrined in the CFRN and the Charter, are preserved and protected. It should arise to its duty under the relevant laws, Charters and Treaties. For instance, according to Article 1 of the Charter, the Member States of the Organization of African Unity parties to the present Charter shall recognize the rights, duties and freedoms enshrined in this Charter and shall undertake to adopt legislative or other measures to give effect to them.” In Article 16(2), the Charter stipulates that “States Parties to the present Charter shall take the necessary measures to protect the health of their people and to ensure that they receive medical attention when they are sick.
5.2 The President who is the Head of the Government at the centre should take charge of his Government and the agencies under him/it. The Agencies should not just serve as a mere poverty alleviation programmefor the citizenry; they should do their work as prescribed by the respective enabling statutes. The regime of penalty for gas flaring should stop assame is not the proper panacea for the atrocious outcome of gas flaring.
The oil companies should stop gas flaring or re-inject gas to the oil wells;and if they are unable to do same, they should be made to shut down!
5.3 There is no reason we should have agencies like FEPA, NESREA and NOSDRA and justice has continued to elude our people.
5.3.1 For instance, we have the: National Environmental Standards and Regulations
Enforcement Agency (NESREA). The Agency is statutorily required to: i. enforce compliance with laws, guidelines, policies and standards on environmental matters;
ii. enforce compliance with the provisions of international agreements, protocols, conventions and treaties on the environment, including climate change, biodiversity, conservation, desertification, forestry, oil and gas, chemicals, hazardous wastes, ozone depletion, marine and wildlife, pollution, sanitation and such other environmental agreements as may from time to time come into force;
iii. enforce compliance with policies, standards, legislation and guidelines on water quality, environmental health and sanitation, including pollution abatement;
iv. enforce compliance with any legislation on soundchemical management, safe use of pesticides anddisposal of spent packages thereof;
v. enforce compliance with regulations on the importation, exportation, production, distribution, storage, sale, use, handling and disposal of hazardous chemicals and waste other than in the oil and gas sector; amongst others.
5.3.2 We also have the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA). By virtue of Section 6(1) of the establishing Act, “The Agency shall be responsible for surveillance andensure compliance with all existing environmental legislation and the detection of oil spills in the petroleum sector”.
5.4 Negotiation: As we approach another year, and as we are now in the season of electioneering, rather than strategising to have a bite at thenational cherry, we should engage with the relevant stakeholders and negotiate our future as Niger Deltans, Bayelsans, Nembe se. We should work with our fellow Niger Deltans in insisting that our votes only go to the party/man who pledges an allegiance to our environment to make it whole.
5.5 Pressure Groups: We should constitute ourselves into pressure groups– community by community, street by street, house by house. We should form an army:
i. whose sole weapons of war will be their voices and their pen;
ii. whose conscience cannot be bought by silver or gold or any jewel of precious stone; and
iii. from whose rank none will arise with the character of the biblical Judas Iscariot who earned for himself a reputation of being a betrayal, or Demas who is reputed to have forsaken his brothers and the course they had collectively agreed to pursue the existing pressure groups should not capitulate or acquiesce in their demand for a healthy environment for their people. They should reinvent their tools and oil their vocal machines; and march on until their voices are heard quite loudly and clearly. This extremity in which we have found ourselves is not a Gordian knot; it is solvable.
5.6 Judiciary: The Court is a place set up solely for dispensing justice. Thus, we should keep them occupied doing justice to our demands. The Judges and Justices of our Courts are crucial stakeholders in the protection of our environment; hence so we should engage them the same way we engage the politicians and our political leaders. Environmental rights of minorities within the Nigerian nation should be made justiciable through concerted acts of parliament. In the exact words of the apex Court in the case of Centre for Oil Pollution Watch v. N.N.P.C ….Courts in this country, the lot have correctlyargued, are by virtue of sections 16(2), 17(2)(d) (3), and 20of the 1999 Constitution, section
17(4) of the Oil Pipelines Act CAP 07 LFN and the Oil and Gas Pipeline Regulations under duty to protect the environment and would fail in that duty if in the instant case they do not facilitate the protection these laws have put in place. Their reliance on R v. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Ex Parte World Development Movement Ltd (1995)1 ALL ELR 611, 620, Reg v. Inland Revenue Commissions, Ex parte National Federation of self-Employed and Small Business Ltd (1982) AC 617, 639 as instances of liberalization of the scope of locus standi by courts in similar jurisdictions and in the absence of any statutory empowerment is apposite.
5.7 Furthermore,
5.7.1 We must set out a clear environmental protection and remediation agenda for the next administration rather than allow the vagaries of Abuja politics becloud the process and leave us with more meaningless soundbites and less meaningful action.
5.7.2 We must improve the stock of those we send to represent us in our respective Government houses across the Niger Delta and with those we send to Abuja to the legislature. This can only become a reality when we improve the quality of those who control our local politics and political parties. The time for Generals and Warlords is at an end as that era of politics is no longer fit for purpose; our people now need the real intelligentsia in the mould of the eminent Chief Justice Allagoa to step forward. This is a challenge and clarion call to this August body, stand up and stand fast! Infiltrate political parties, take
a stand for the Ijaw people. It is time to protect all their rights not just those that pertain to the environment.
5.7.3 I believe I have earned the right to confidently demand this of you, as I have myself having seen the rot in our political system up close and personal and the need for intellectuals to take over the asylum before the mentally and morally afflicted consign it to a future we cannot come back from. I have contested twice for high office, once for the legislature and once to become Governor of Bayelsa State.
Unfortunately, our politics, our people, and our version of what is practical are dysfunctional in the eyes of what is rational.
5.7.4 We must intensify our call for proper control of our economic resources with which we can adequately install preventive and remedial environmental protection measures at the local level; as I said earlier, only one who sees and has felt up close and persona the searing effects of environmental degradation will understand the need to protect those rights aggressively.
5.7.5 We must hold the Nigerian government and the relevant oil companies accountable for all past unremedied infractions on our environment through the instrumentality of diligent negotiations or stringent legal actions, as the landscape of oil production is changing given emerging global ESG realities. Many of these companies may soon be moving on leaving our environment in a worse state than they met it.
5.7.6 The host communities bill must be expanded to empower the host communities with stronger monitoring and reporting standards to ensure the localization of remedial action.
5.8 As I close, I must state that I am not oblivious of the fact that I have been called upon to give a “Lecture” but I know that I am by that also required to give a wake-up call to all. So, I pray us to spare no effort and should not rest on our oars in the struggle for justice for our environment. Let us not lose hope in our quest to leave our communities (environment) a better place for our children.
5.8.1 The history of the Ijaw man is replete with many different epochsand stanzas and in each season of trial and tribulation, God has seen it fit to bless us with people who are appropriate to champion our causes; Justice Ambrose Allagoa was a man for his time, he ran his race diligently, with honour and steadfastness and met the challenges of his day.
5.8.2 Today, new challenges bedevil our collective existence that demand that we raise men for a time such as this, to confront the monsters of neglect and maladministration showing up in the sorry state of our environment and the concomitant effect on the health and general livelihood of the Ijaw nation.
5.8.3 Justice Ambrose Allagoa’s noble race is run, he has played his part; who will stand in the gap and carry the torch for the Ijaw man and his right to life, liberty, and his pursuit of dignity? This is a time for men and women of character to stand and be counted and working together we can make a difference.
5.8.4 If you would permit, I seek to close with some verses of the famous song of the late legendary reggae singer, Bob Marley,
“Get Up Stand Up”.
Get up, stand up
Stand up for your right…
Don’t give up the fight
Most people think
Great God will come from the sky
Take away everything;
And make everybody feel high; But if you know what life is worth;
You would look for yours on earth; And now you see the light
You stand up for your right
Jah!
I thank you for your kind attention
By Chief Anthony George-Ikoli S.A.N, Founding Partner, George Ikoli & Okagbue
A Paper Presented at the Second Edition of the Annual Justice (His Royal Majesty) Ambrose Allagoa Memorial Lecture Held on Thursday, 8th of December, 2022 at the Ceremonial Court Hall, Block C, High Court Complex, Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
