The Future is in our Roots
Environment is the tangible and intangible surroundings and the complex ecosystem that humans share with all beings, human and non-human, living and non-living. It is both visible and invisible. This includes the land, w…
Our Ocean and Human Rights
Today we are considering the state of our ocean—not as a commodity to be exploited, but as a common good that sustains life, livelihoods, our culture and spirituality. Our ocean is under siege, and the communities that d…
Books, Imaginations and Ecological Liberation
“…all classical traditions of world literature are fostered by environments where there are intensive struggles against great evils for the restoration of human dignity.” – G. G. Darah, “Revolutionary Pressures in …
Recovering our Taste Buds
Food plays a critical role in the life of any community or nation. Food is at the centre of our cultures. Agricultural and food systems generate songs, dances, drama and other art forms that moderate the pulse of any com…
COP29 and Climate Geopolitics
As COP29 dragged into overtime the expected climate finance target of at least $1.3 trillions of dollars shrunk to an offer of $250 billion per year from 2035. After much bickering the rich countries decided to rai…
Privatized and Sacrificed
The Niger Delta is a privatized zone by the simple reason that the international oil companies have since appropriated it as a wasteland suited only for dumping of toxic wastes, oil spills, gas flares and produced water.…
Extractivism and Cultural Resistance
The challenges confronting our communities and peoples generally are interconnected. They are often analyzed and presented as though they operate in silos. The reality is that they operate in intricately connected webs a…
Our Right to Safe Food
Nigeria, like many other African nations, stands at a crossroads to her food future. The stark choice is between adopting agricultural biotechnology in line with the industrial agriculture model or agreocology (regenerat…
COP28 and the Evasion of Climate Justice
The foundation for voluntary emissions cut by nations was laid in the Copenhagen Accord (2009) and consolidated in the Paris Agreement (2015) under what is known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC). Th…
Extractivism’s Ecological Time Bombs
Extractivism is deeply linked to ecological damage and negation of human rights Ecological damage because it disrupts ecosystems, from the simple case of conversion of land use to the fragmentation of biodiver…
Will COP28 Play With Fire?
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has again issued an Emissions Gap Report that underscores the fact that the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the linchpin of the Paris agreement is not…
The Artist in the Age of Anthropocene
Archeologists divide Earth’s history in a geologic time scale into a hierarchical series of smaller blocks of time. These divisions are called ages, epochs, periods, eras and eons based on Earth’s rock lay…
Time to Build Solidarity, not Walls
I thank the Chancellor and President, and the entire family of York University for the great honour being extended to me today. Being born at a time we were at the edge of breaking free from colonialism, the notion of i…
Environmental History of Nigeria 101
Introduction The environmental history of Nigeria unfortunately is not a story filled with the rich biodiverse tropical rainforests of the Niger Delta or the cascading rich vegetation of the Sahel savanna but rather one …
Decolonize our Waters
there isn’t much life under water coated by layers of crude oil and contaminated to outlandish levels above safe limits.…
