Date Published: 09/17/09

Journalists indict FG on environment, push for reforms

PARTICIPANTS at a two -day media training workshop in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, on Thursday, took a swipe at the Federal Government of Nigeria, claiming that they have not shown sufficient will to tackle the environmental problems of the country's oil and gas region.

They are therefore pushing for a Constitutional Reform as against the current moves by legislators to amend the 1999 constitution. They however, lamented the under reporting of the environment and environmental issues in the country’s media.

The workshop which was organised by the foremost environmental advocacy group, Environmental Rights Action (ERA) focused on reporting the environment which was organized by the Environmental Right Action (ERA) Resource persons were drawn from both Nigeria and Finland. They harped on the challenges of environmental reporting in the country and its scopes.

Mr. Kari Rissa, an author and a member of the Finish environmental Journalists Association in his paper, “scope and Content of Environmental Reporting” noted that the world is beset by a huge environmental problem.

Rissa linked the enormity of the problem to greed, quartal capitalism, busy lifestyle over consumption, poverty and unfair economy, lack of democracy as well as unawareness of environmental issues.

He pointed out that the global population had made environmental problems more serious concern because it has to do with food security, population control, land use and distribution as well as land management and production.

In a paper, “Key Environmental Challenges” in Nigeria, Nnimmo Bassey, Executive Director of ERA listed major challenges of environment and themes for coverage by the media.

“These he said, “include air pollution, soil pollution, water pollution, government actions or inactions on policy, oil industry activities, legislative policy – the Petroleum Industry Bill and for example, and environmental laws which were rarely applied, enforced or even known by the public.

Bassey wondered why so much money is spent on wars rather than ion the environment, noting that the biggest problem of violence and threat of life in the 21st century Nigeria “are not guns but pollution which kill thousands annually.
He raised alarm that by 2007 report, life expectancy in Nigeria stood at 46.4 years for men, 47 years for women while in the urban population, life expectancy was 48 years, describing the scenario as grace and dangerous.

He further noted that the situation was more horrendous in the Niger Delta where life expectancy was 41 years and pointed that the future could be more black for the region where the search for new oil had been expanding.

“As a result, more people are being poisoned daily without knowing it”, he alarmed pointing out that environmental justice is minimal in Nigeria.

Wale Fatade, one of the editors with 234next Newspaper regretted that while reportage of environmental issues required indept understanding of the technical and scientific matters involved, most journalists in the country lacked these properties.

In a paper: “Environmental; News/Features Reporting”, Fatade noted that a good environmental story would take into consideration, the framing of the issues, community perspectives and the role of big corporations. 

In the mean time, ERA is calling for the introduction of environmental issues in party political campaigns.

They are also calling on the Nigerian media to catalyse the polity more for politicians to be more alive to their responsibility to the people especially in matters relating to the environment.

Bassey and Mrs. Mina Ogbanga, Country Director, Center for Development Support Initiatives (CEDSI) made the call during the workshop.

They said that the call became necessary as 2011 was drawing near and in view of what they called the grave environmental catastrophe in the country and the apparent non chalance of the politicians and governments to the situation.

They hinged their call on the elastic resolution of gas flaring which had suffered numerous shifting target dates, the increase of environmental refuges in the country expressing dismay over the politics being played with gas flaring stoppage where the senate, presidency and oil companies are suggesting different dates of 2019, 2011 and 2013 respectively.

Bassey noted that February 17, 2008 marked 50 years of oil extraction in Nigeria while in 2007 alone Nigeria earned US$ 55 billion from oil, ranking it the 4th in earning among OPEC countries for that year.

He regretted that in spite of this, individual Nigerians have become poorer; blaming it on the polity and government policies, adding that much of the nation’s money was still concentrated in Abuja.

Insisting that what Nigeria is practicing is not democracy, Bassey noted that the country had continued to turn out high population of environmental refuges as communities are being washed away by flood, coastal and gually erosion desertification and deforestation.

“More communities and more lives have been destroyed during democratic dispensation than during the whole military regimes in Nigeria”, he pointed out, citing Umuechem in Rivers which lost 90 lives in 1990, Odi 2000 while Okporoza and Gbamaturu among other communities were sacked.

He advised that Nigeria need urgently to re-engineer its political configuration.

Also speaking Ms. Mina Ogbanga called on the media to continue to expand the frontiers of knowledge by media practitioners and new strategy in media practice.

“Journalists”, she said should move from practice of yester years to the new dynamic era by acquiring new technologies in the media practice”.

This, according to Ogbanga, “Will equip them more to tackle the issues of environmental distortion and get politicians to see reason in taking proactive steps in the art of governance to solve the problems”.