Why environmental injustice flourishes in Nigeria

BUSINESS POST

By Jerome-Mario Utomi

Recently, precisely on Tuesday, November 21, 2023, I participated as a panellist at the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS), Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands, a panel discussion on The role of multi-stakeholder engagement in achieving environmental justice.

The gathering, which was held in Victoria Island, Lagos, formed part of training on Environmental Justice: Reducing Ecological and Social Inequalities through Effective and Participatory Land Governance.

Essentially, in my private study/preparation for the programme, the need to domesticate the subject became paramount to me. To achieve this objective; the following questions came flooding; what is environmental justice? Are there traces or evidence that it exists in any part of Nigeria? In what form or shape? Who are the people responsible? Who are the most impacted? What is the politics that kept it going? How can we creatively achieve effective development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies without discrimination against the have-nots and vulnerable peoples? What strategy and tactics can policy and decision-makers at both Federal and state levels adopt to get the people directly involved in the decision-making process that affects their environment?

Providing answers to the above questions, beginning with the first, from what experts are saying, environmental justice is a crusade that advocates fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of race, colour, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.

Viewed broadly, environmental justice, according to the world information search engine, Wikipedia, is a social movement to address environmental injustice, which occurs when poor or marginalized communities are harmed by hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses from which they do not benefit. The movement has generated hundreds of studies showing that exposure to environmental harm is inequitably distributed.

Historically, the movement began in the United States in the 1980s. It was heavily influenced by the American civil rights movement and focused on environmental racism within rich countries. The movement was later expanded to consider gender, international environmental injustice, and inequalities within marginalised groups.

The global environmental justice movement arises from local environmental conflicts in which environmental defenders frequently confront multinational corporations in resource extraction or other industries. Local outcomes of these conflicts are increasingly influenced by transnational environmental justice networks.

Undoubtedly, when the above definition/explanation is juxtaposed with the ongoing degradation in the country in the name of development, it becomes glaringly obvious that environmental injustice exists here in Nigeria and remains a sin that all must share in its guilt.  But if this injustice which daily and harmfully impacts the poor and other vulnerable Nigerians is a challenge in other parts of the country, what is happening in the Niger Delta region, South-South Geopolitical zone is a crisis…