Niger Delta with No Fish?
Before the onslaught of six decades of unrelenting oil pollution, there was an abundance of fish species in both freshwater and marine ecosystems of the Niger Delta. Today, many of these fish species are endangered due t…
Talking About Seeds and Foods
Research has shown that although there are many policies around aspects of agriculture in Nigeria, there is no organizing policy that ties everything together. Officials work on silos and sometimes actively protect their…
Oil Field Monologues
Living in the oil field has been a disaster. And the many-tentacled roots of the ecological crisis require deep considerations. At one end is the willful irresponsibility of the oil companies who simply rake in more prof…
Emerging Technologies and the Politics of Hunger
It is not too late for Nigeria to get out of the biotech hole before it turns into a bottomless pit. The so-called guidelines for gene-editing and extreme GMOs are dangerous and needless. It is time to halt and completel…
Ecocide and Carbon Crimes
Extensive damage to the environment often amounts to literally killing the environment. Such harms impact the soil, the air and water of such the affected areas in more or less irreversible ways. A word that aptly descri…
What’s Wrong with our Food System?
Policies with provisions guiding farming and food in our nation have generally not been the most progressive. While the colonial and immediate post-colonial era laid more emphasis on cash cropping for export, the current…
Standing on Living Soils… Looking back from the Future
The Years of Repair challenges us to jump into the future and look at the paths by which we got there. It shows us the power of our imaginations and underscores the fact we can get to our preferred destinations by acknow…
An Eye on Biosafety
The natural world is a resilient world. A major way by which this resilience is built and preserved is through diversity. Diversity raises the chances of survival of species if a part of the group is attacked or altered …
Who Says the Town Crier is Gone (The Life of Patrick Naagbanton)
“Who Says the Town Crier is Gone” is the title of a poem written by Styvn Obodoekwe in the poetry collection “Night has Come Again.” That collection is made of poems written at the passing of Patr…
The Guardians of Neocolonialism
Unfortunately, many of us are sucked into the “governance” debate without recognizing the tragic reality that neoliberal capitalism deepens the extractive-export model in the Global South that continues to lead to displa…
The Colour Blue is not the Problem with the Blue Economy
The color blue is not the problem with the blue economy. We often hear that sustainable development stands on three legs of social equity, economic viability and environmental protection. The intersection of these three …
The COVID-19 Centre
The aroma from the tilapia on the grill wafted around the street corner. Entering every home through the front door and exiting through the windows. Everyone in the neighbourhood knew when Mama Ogie had set up shop for t…
The Pull of the Mangroves and the Sea
There is something about water that draws humans and other living beings. Could it be the fact that up to 60 percent of the human body is made up of water? When people say that water is life, the meaning goes deeper than…
Rainbows Through the Tears
It is exactly at a time when mass gravesLine the streets as grim markers of a stubborn invisible foe That we understand the need to appreciate little graces It is precisely at a time when we hug and even cry in pityThat …
In the rear views of life
Nostalgia, memories in the rear views of life Mirrors with many faces and dreams may be rife But focus on the perspective etched by the vista of converging parallels Know that though hopes, visions, dreams and paths ahea…
