Top Nigerian environmentalist sees little coming out of COP30

Bassey, a longtime environmentalist, will only attend meetings among environmental activists on the sidelines of the official COP30 talks.

"For us as activists, the COP provides spaces for solidarity, for meeting other people, sharing ideas, and organising in a different way," he told AFP in an interview in Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos.

Yet he is hopeful that one day "the outside space may become the real decision-making space, while the politicians become the observers".

Oil pollution that has ravaged the Niger Delta for decades is a textbook example of environmental struggles against extractivism and fossil fuels.

Since the 1950s, when crude was first discovered in southern Nigeria, between nine and 13 million barrels of oil have been spilled into the Delta, according to an independent group of experts who conducted a study in 2006.

Between 2006 and last year, the Nigerian National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency reported over 130 million litres of crude oil spilled in what Bassey describes as the "sacrifice zone".

That is not enough to deter Nigerian authorities, who want to increase national production. The government early this month announced that the number of active drilling rigs rose from 31 to 50 between January and July.

"I believe that oil should be kept in the ground, that nobody should extract not even one drop of oil," said Bassey.

- 'Young people rising up' -

Africa's most populous country is vulnerable to climate change, even though the continent as a whole only contributes about four percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

"Every region has peculiar environmental issues," said Bassey, who won the 2012 Rafto Prize, a Norwegian award given to human rights defenders.

He lamented "increased desertification" in Nigeria's north; "gully erosion" in the south, "deforestation" and an "environmental crisis from illegal mining" across the country.

"Everything is really horrible."

"The seeds for the degradation that we're seeing today, especially in the oil fields and the mining fields, were sown even while I was a child," said Bassey, who was born the same year Nigeria exported its first crude oil, marking the start of "a continuum of disaster upon disaster".

Bassey grew up in a small village in southeastern Nigeria, in a family of farmers and traders. His childhood was marked by the "horrors" of the civil war, commonly called the Biafra War, which ravaged the region between 1967 and 1970 and claimed at least one million civilian lives.

An architect by training, the writer and poet first became involved in defending human rights and opposing the country's military authorities before working hand-in-hand with Ken Saro-Wiwa, a "martyr for environmental justice" who was executed by hanging by Sani Abacha's military regime in 1995 for his fight against the abuses of oil companies in the Delta.

After more than three decades of activism, the demands remain the same: hold governments and the polluting companies "responsible", restore the environment and pay reparations to affected people.

With his nearly 30-year-old foundation, Health of Mother Earth, Bassey is backing a lawsuit filed by a traditional monarch against the British oil giant Shell, demanding $2 billion in damages. 

King Bubaraye Dakolo is also seeking to stop Shell from divesting from its Nigerian assets without fixing decades of pollution.

Oil companies always deny allegations of pollution, arguing that oil spills were caused by sabotage by local criminals.

Despite believing the situation worsens by the day, Bassey maintains there is still hope, thanks to a new crop of budding young activists.

"There's a big groundswell of people who are rising up... young people rising up," he said.

"I'm really very inspired. That's positive".

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