Time for a Peoples’ COP
As COP26 went on, there was a parallel Cop26coalition’s people’s summit centred on real climate and devoid of vested fossil interests. It exposed COP26 to be a Conference of Polluters, Conference of Profiteers or Confere…
Politics of Turbulent Waters
The fact that Africa can be completely circumnavigated has advantages and disadvantages. One of the advantages is that the continent can be accessed by sea from any direction. This means that the seas can be a ready tool…
Coastal Communities Under Threat
Climate change and variability in Nigeria is starkly illustrated in the northern and southern regions of Nigeria by desertification and coastal erosion respectively. This is so because attention is often focussed on thes…
I will not Eat a Pesticide
Food and nutrition are key to human health. We strive to ensure that we have nutritious foods and that the seeds from which we produce these foods are free from contamination and do not pose a threat to our biodiversity.…
Okavango and the Tragedy of Fossils in Africa
The quest for profit in a predatory economic system has made it possible for humans to wilfully ignore extractivist crimes unfolding in broad daylight. A clear case is the clawing into Namibia’s Okavango Basin in search …
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…
Abolishing Persistent Ecologic and Economic Crimes in the Niger Delta
We hope that the outcomes will strengthen the cause for justice for our peoples and for our environment. Indeed, the judgements should be seen as clarion calls for the utter abolishment of the persistent ecocidal ecologi…
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 …
