Stilt Roots and Power
The vital place of the narrative strategy is in awakening memories and building consciousness for action. Over the past months we have experienced an evolving of our understanding of critical storytelling. We have seen t…
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 …
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…
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…
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…
He was a Man of Peace
It is with deep humility that I address this gathering to mark the 79th posthumous birthday of our great leader, Ken Saro-Wiwa. I thank Ogoni Civil Society Stakeholders’ Forum for facilitating this event. For some of us…
Jesse Pipeline Fire Tragedy: 22 Years of Silence
Pipelines convey goods from one location to another. For example, pipelines are used to convey water to households in cities and other human communities. They can be used for irrigation purposes and for a variety of purp…
