By Onuora Aninwobodo
Environmental experts are sounding the alarm that our oceans are under siege.
Speaking at a forum hosted by the Nigerian Institute for Marine Research, experts stressed that the ocean is not a resource to be exploited but a vital part of life, culture, and spirituality.
The event, in collaboration with the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, highlighted the devastating impacts of pollution, displacement, and human rights abuses on coastal communities.
Director of Research at the Institute, Patience Obatola, says the ocean reflects human actions—what we put in, it gives back.
Also speaking, the Director of the International Ocean Institute, Williams Akanbi, emphasized the urgent need for policymakers to take action to secure the ocean’s future.
The Executive Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation Nnimmo Bassey gave insight on the sufferings of coastal communities.
He called for more collaborations and efforts to care for the Ocean.
Dr Nnimmo said across the coastline of Nigeria, community folks are being forced from their territories, deprived of their resources and left to grapple with the consequences of laxly regulated natural resource exploitation.
The economic forces driving this destruction prioritize profit over people, extracting resources beyond the ocean’s capacity, and leave behind a trail of ecological devastation.
The infrastructure of Nigeria’s economy begin at our shorelines and extend to the deep waters where resources are extracted— and coastal communities who bear the pressures from the land and the sea remain trapped in poverty.
He said that the nation cannot ignore the countless oil well blowouts that have polluted our waters: Akaso Well 4, Atanba, Bonny Terminal, Buguma Wellhead 008, Santa Barbara, and the ongoing inferno at Ororo Oil Well 1 at Awoye, Ondo State, which has been raging for close to five years now, among others.
“These disasters are ecological crimes that contribute to climate instability, and a worsening scarcity of land and water, placing entire communities and livelihoods at risk.”
We live with the struggles of fishermen and women who set out each day with their nets and baskets, only to find empty waters—enclosed and sacrificed for industrial dredging, multinational oil companies and corporate fishing.
A Community like Aiyetoro with its history of well organized governance and industrial strides is now a ghost of its former self, bashed and washed by unrelenting waves and left to grapple with unrelenting impacts of global warming and possibly heading for complete displacement unless we act.
The gathering brought together researchers, civil society, and affected communities to discuss solutions and ensure the ocean remains a life-sustaining force for generations to come.
