Environment
By EricJames Ochigbo
The 10th National Assembly has been urged to use the ongoing constitutional review process to enshrine Environmental Rights in the Constitution of Nigeria.
Dr Nnimmo Bassey, Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), a Civil Society Organisation (CSO), made the call on Monday at the 2nd Nigeria Socio-ecological Alternatives Convergence in Abuja.
He said that the call had become necessary as environmental rights are not justiciable in the country.
Bassey said that there was need to grant personhood status to water bodies, forests, rocks, hills, soil, air, wildlife among others to prevent abuse.
The director said that desertification, deforestation, extreme water and air pollution, deadly floods, coastal and gully erosion, insecure farms and diverse ecological devastations, merited a declaration of national environmental security state of emergency.
“We have examples already in South Africa and Kenya; environmental rights are fully enshrined in their Constitutions.
“Some South American counties have the right of nature imbedded in their Constitutions; in Nigeria we do not have that yet.
“We need to see where the hills of Abuja including Aso Rock, granted personhood status so people do not just go and blast them away as rocks for buildings materials as if they have no significance.
“It is environment that connect all of us, it binds us together, if we do not respect nature, if we do not care about the environment, it is a reflection of the fact that we do not care about one another and the future generation,” he said.
In a keynote address, Prof. Emmanuel Oladipo said that if a nation’s environmental foundations are depleted, the economy may decline, its social fabric may deteriorate, and its political structure may become destabilised.
He explained that development would be meaningful if it does not increase a country’s vulnerability to environmental, climate change and complex socio-ecological impacts.
“Development seeing purely from economic growth view that is an increase in quantity cannot be sustainable indefinitely on a finite planet.
“Meaningful and sustainable economic development and environmental degradation must be attacked simultaneously within, well defined national agenda that leverages from global agenda and based on a comprehensive and integrated policy framework,” he said.(NAN)