From illegal mining to petroleum production and farmer-herder conflicts, Nigeria has been grappling with the consequences of environmental destruction and the effects of climate change. Sadly, journalists reporting on this phenomenon and activists working to protect the environment and resource-based livelihoods, are being threatened.
This is the case of Kazeem Olalekan Israel, a climate and environmental activist, who exposed illegal mining activities on Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) campus. Israel, a postgraduate student of the citadel of learning, on March 18, 2024, wrote an opinion piece on the proliferation of illegal mining on OAU campus and also called on the Nigeria Minister of Solid Minerals, Dele Alake, to address reckless activities of miners on the University’s land.
Following his piece, Nigerian authorities, on April 17, 2024, announced the suspension of mining activities within OAU and its environs. While the news brought relief to the university community, Israel received several phone threats for his role in protecting the school from illegal miners.
“Following my article and interviews with various journalists, kicking against illegal mining activities on OAU campus, I received several threats on phone by unknown individuals asking me to pull down my articles,” Israel narrated. “At some point I felt traumatised for some days as my life was under threat for defending the earth and ensuring that our community is safe for all.”
Another environmental activist and forest guard in Ekiti State, Segun Olajide, narrated a near-death experience earlier this year when he stopped deforestation in one of the oldest forest reserves in the state.
“I was attacked in the midnight when I denied some lorries from transporting the trees they fell from the forest. One of the drivers attacked me with a heavy iron and threatened to kill me if I didn’t allow them to pass. … Before my colleagues (other guards) arrived, another driver brought out a chainsaw. I was beaten and injured in the process,” he explained.
Sometimes, a whole community can be taken hostage by the powerful people who live fat off environmental degradation. Akinkunmi Alabi, a female resident of Ibodi in Osun State, lamented “once illegal miners realise there’s gold on a farm, they reach out to corrupt community leaders, who always give them the approval to encroach, after receiving bribes.” She cited instances where the community members reported the activities of environmental destruction to authorities, but nothing was done by the authorities.
The 2013 case of Odey Oyama, Director of Rainforest Resource & Development Centre (RRDC) in south-east Nigeria, encapsulates the threat faced by activists demanding accountability from powerful corporate organisations whose activities destroy the environment and local livelihood. As a result of his advocacy, Odey was placed on a government watch list. He was eventually forced to flee his home after persistent threats and police harassment. His advocacy concerned the operations of the international firm Wilmar, which acquired 35, 000 hectares of land for an oil palm plantation project in Cross River State, in south east Nigeria. Specifically, his organisation denounced the loss of local farm lands to the project, non-compliance with environmental sustainability requirements and encroachment on the Cross River National Park and Ekinta forest reserve.
“It is not possible to pin point the exact cause of the recent police harassment; but it could have arisen from any of the issues in which I have been involved in my person or under the auspices of RRDC”, Odey told the World Rain Forest.
Civil society organisations advocating for sustainable environmental practices also lament the persistent hostility and attempts to gag environmental activists.
Marianne Bassey of Friends of the Earth Nigeria, a non-governmental organisation advocating for climate and environmental justice, said, while their campaigns are driven from the grassroots, Nigerian authorities often shrink their voices.
“We face people who clamp down on our voices. They try to kill things that affect their business without considering what happens to the environment. Sometimes, when they are having a hearing about the environment, they don’t even invite activists for their input. For the government, it’s profit over people, rather than people over profits. It’s a shrinking space, but we have to continue to speak for our people. It’s really painful, and I hope our government understands that we’re not their enemies.”
Quadri Adesola, founder of Fight Climate Now Initiative, said in addition to facing threats from irresponsible actors, his field team is also exposed to physical harm from pollution, toxic substances.
“Climate and environmental journalists and activists need to be protected because they are usually the first point of call after natural disasters such as floods or wildfires. Sometimes, they go to the field with little or no preparation, yet they face all forms of violent attacks,” Mr. Adesola added.
A climate activist who pleaded anonymity, said “Sometimes, the environmental saboteurs plant moles in the community to report on the activities of environment activists. They can be as brutal as a drug cartel,” she said.
In Northern Nigeria, many citizens are under threat, caught up in the crossfire of frequent farmers and herders’ clashes. According to a 2017 report by the International Crisis Group “drought and desertification have degraded pastures, dried up many natural water sources across Nigeria’s far-northern Sahelian belt and forced large numbers of herders to migrate south in search of grassland and water for their herds.” The pastoral herders often stray or deliberately trespass into farmlands, leading to deadly clashes.
While the clashes create an unsecure environment for the work of activists, it is also a risky venture reporting on them. In 2018, while investigating farmer-herder conflicts in Southern Kaduna, investigative journalist, Isine Ibanga, visited several communities to document the agonies of victims of the violence. By 2020, mass killings in Southern Kaduna had become too rampant, so he decided to visit the affected communities on a fact-finding mission. Unfortunately, his exposés angered powerful forces including the then Governor Nasir El-Rufai whose narratives on the incidents were contradicted by the journalist’s reports.
“I uncovered evidence of Fulani attacks on farmers, contradicting the governor’s claims. I exposed the truth, and soon, my sources were targeted,” he said “The governor’s spokespersons refused to comment. Yet the houses of those who spoke with me were being burned. My sources warned me to flee.”
Sometime in October 2020, while returning home from his work station in Abuja, he escaped assassination and had to travel to his village for safety. The threats against Ibanga were condemned by several media rights groups, including the International Press Centre, the MFWA’s partner organisation in Nigeria.
In early 2021, he was advised to flee the country as his life was seriously under threat because the killing of his sources and their relatives had intensified. Ibanga narrowly escaped, fleeing to Ghana with the help of ActionAid.
But even there, he was hunted to near insanity. “I was losing my mind and couldn’t sleep very well at night. I spent four months indoors, losing my grip on reality,” he added.
Back in 2008, Ibanga was arrested by Shell Oil Company’s security while investigating the environmental impact of the company’s operations. He was later handed over to militants who threatened to kill him in the forest.
“It was another police officer who understood my language that rescued me from the militants,” he narrated,” Ibanga said in an interview.
The brutal repression of critical voices who are demanding environmental justice in connection with the devastating impact of oil exploitation in Ogoni is well documented. The execution of environmental activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa in November 1995 amply underline the persecution.
Ubongabasi Ebenezer Israel[1], a historian and academic, quoting Bamidele (2016), said “In 1993, following protests that were designed to stop contractors from laying new pipelines for Shell, the security agencies raided the area to quell the activities of that militant group. In the chaos that followed, it has been alleged that 27 villages were raided, resulting in the death of 2,000 Ogoni people and displacement of about 8, 000 others.”
Twenty-two years down the line, the situation remains dire. Livelihoods have been lost, while the community has grown weary of complaining.
“Our fishes continue to die in the river, they are forced out of our communities due to sea incursion and oil spillage. We are angry because this is an oil-producing community, yet we suffer,” Oluwole Omope, a resident of Ayetoro, Ondo in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria said. “The government did not do anything except for the fact that they usually make promises that have never been fulfilled.”
Journalists reporting on the environment are not spared either. When Adejumo Kabir, a Lagos-based journalist visited Osun State to investigate the illegal gold mining activities by Chinese miners, he was confronted by local chiefs and police officers, aiding the dangerous mining activities endangering the environment.
In a bid to expose the anomalies, Kabir visited various illegal gold mining sites in Ilesha, Itaagun, Ifewara and Ibodi areas of Osun on a fact-finding assignment in January 2020.
The sad imprints of illegal mining were visible all over the place. The landscape was wrecked, the once lush vegetation peeled off, the soil contaminated, while erosion had created craters and pits across the communities. The activities of illegal miners were exposing the lives of the people living around the areas to health risks such as lead poisoning and other heavy metal poisoning, respiratory problems, water-borne diseases, cancer and other chronic diseases.
Narrating his bitter experience during his investigative reporting trip, Kabir said he was harassed by three Chinese nationals and police officers, who questioned his effrontery in coming to their sites.
“My encounter was a bitter one. It made me question the activities of the Nigeria Police Force as their men were seen protecting illegal miners. One of them even told me I shouldn’t have come to their sites at all. The police seized my phone and deleted all the videos and pictures earlier captured,” the journalist said.
“When I left the site to another place, I encountered that same challenge. This time, I was assaulted by hoodlums, who denied me entrance into the company, and made tracing of the environmental destruction being done difficult for me. They even threatened to kill and bury me in any of their dug pits.”
“A traditional ruler who gave farm lands to illegal gold miners even threatened to kill me. He cursed and warned that he would go spiritual to ensure I am not useful to my family,” said the journalist.
Those who earn their livelihood by destroying the environment and the livelihood of others have continued to use threats to frighten Nigerian journalists and activists who are highlighting climate and environment issues.
As a result of this, many journalists have resorted to self-censorship or even avoided climate and environmental stories, bar a few.
While, it has been four years since Kabir had this bitter experience covering illegal mining, time has done little to calm the hostility towards environmental activists and journalists.
It is imperative for the Nigerian government to be deliberate about saving the environment. This is because the environment is the very foundation of human existence. It is therefore, crucial for the media and civil society to continue raising awareness to ensure that environmental issues become priority concerns for Nigeria’s electorate and political establishment.
Environmental conservation should be integrated into school curricula and annual awards instituted to recognise states, communities, industries, organisations and individuals who have distinguished themselves in protecting the environment. Local authorities including traditional chiefs, must be educated to appreciate and support the work of environmental activists.
The government must enforce laws and policies protecting the environment from destructive activities, protect environmental activists and ensure justice for those threatened or attacked for their advocacy on the environment.
This report is produced as part of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)’s project on Promoting Agroecology and Environmental Sustainability; and Enhancing Freedom of Expression in West Africa. The project, which is being implemented with funding support from the 11th Hour Project of the Schmidt Family Foundation aimed at promoting sustainable environmental and agricultural practices and enabling the environment for expression to ensure that unsustainable activities can be reported for redress.
[1] Ubongabasi, Ebenezer Israel – Environmental Injustices and Conflicts in Nigeria’s Niger Delta: Evidence from Ogoniland
