- HOMEF director warns critical minerals boom could trigger devastation worse than oil pollution, demands accountability from political leaders
Environmental activist and Executive Director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Nnimmo Bassey, has urged Nigerians to reject presidential and governorship candidates who cannot present concrete plans to remediate and restore the Niger Delta’s devastated environment.
Bassey warned that Nigeria’s growing ambition to exploit critical minerals for the global energy transition could unleash another cycle of environmental destruction, potentially surpassing the devastation caused by decades of oil exploration in the Niger Delta if communities’ rights and ecological safeguards are ignored.
He made the call in Port Harcourt while delivering a lecture titled Leadership for Environmental Justice in the Niger Delta at the eighth graduation ceremony and annual leadership lecture of the Kebetkache/Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development (Centre-LSD) Leadership School for the 2025/2026 session.
The environmentalist challenged voters to make environmental accountability a decisive factor in their electoral choices, insisting that politicians who fail to address oil pollution, gas flaring and the destruction of livelihoods should not be entrusted with public office.
“With 240,000 to 260,000 barrels of crude oil spilled annually into the Niger Delta environment and with routine gas flaring ravaging the region for decades, we have it as a key duty to demand all presidential and governorship candidates to clearly state what their focus on the environment would be when elected,” he said.
“Any candidate that does not have concrete plans for the remediation and restoration of the deeply damaged environment should not be given a single vote by the electorate.”
Bassey cited persistent oil fires, gas eruptions and pollution incidents across the region as evidence of the failure of successive political administrations and relevant institutions to address environmental emergencies affecting host communities.
He questioned why voters should support politicians who had failed to resolve the fire at the Ororo-1 oil well off Awoye community in Ondo State, which he said had continued for more than six years.
He also highlighted gas eruptions in Bille community, Degema Local Government Area of Rivers State, and an uncontrolled crude oil fire on the water surface at Oil Well 9, OML 18, in Ofiomina-Ama Alakiri community, Okrika Local Government Area.
According to him, these incidents expose the widening gap between the wealth generated from the Niger Delta’s natural resources and the living conditions of communities bearing the environmental costs of extraction.
“The wealth extracted from the region has not translated into a life of dignity for many of its people, and this is not simply an environmental problem, but a question of justice, power, accountability and the meaning of development itself,” he said.
The HOMEF director argued that environmental injustice persisted because economic benefits flowed to powerful interests and distant beneficiaries, while oil-producing communities were left with contaminated water, declining agricultural productivity, damaged fisheries and dwindling livelihood opportunities.
Describing the arrangement as colonial and neocolonial, he maintained that responsible leadership required challenging entrenched systems of exploitation and empowering communities to determine their environmental and economic futures.
He said leadership should not be measured by political positions, official titles or public visibility, but by the willingness to confront injustice and defend the rights of affected people.
“Leadership is concretised through consistent and repeated repudiation of environmental crimes,” he said.
Bassey cited women organising to protect water sources, young people documenting oil spills, fishermen demanding investigations into polluted creeks and residents resisting environmental destruction as examples of leadership driven by community action.
He particularly highlighted the disproportionate burden borne by women, whose responsibilities in farming, fishing, water collection, food preparation and household sustenance make them especially vulnerable to environmental degradation.
He lamented that women, young people and marginalised groups were frequently excluded from decisions concerning land, energy, natural resources and development, despite bearing many of the consequences.
The activist called on political leaders and institutions to promote inclusive governance, share decision-making power and ensure that host communities had a meaningful voice in policies affecting their territories and economic prospects.
Critical minerals boom raises fresh environmental concerns
Bassey warned that Nigeria’s ambition to become a major producer of critical minerals required for renewable energy technologies could create another extractive crisis if the country repeated the mistakes of its oil industry.
He recalled the lead-poisoning disaster associated with artisanal gold mining in Zamfara State in 2010, which killed hundreds of children, as well as fatal mine collapses in Plateau State.
He also referred to the reported arrest of 37 teenagers over alleged illegal mining in Niger State, claiming that all but one died in detention. He cited the incidents as evidence of serious weaknesses in natural-resource governance and the protection of vulnerable populations.
According to Bassey, the transition from fossil fuels to minerals used in renewable energy technologies would not automatically guarantee environmental justice if extraction continued to displace communities, destroy ecosystems and concentrate economic benefits among powerful interests.
He expressed concern over the reported $700 billion memorandum of agreement between Nigeria and the United States concerning critical minerals, warning that the arrangement required close scrutiny of its terms, environmental safeguards and provisions for host communities.
“Without strong environmental justice leadership in our communities, and nation at large, the recently announced $700 billion memorandum of agreement between the USA and Nigeria over the country’s critical minerals endowment should ring alarm bells,” he said.
He warned that communities could once again be sacrificed to sustain resource extraction and supply minerals to foreign markets, despite bearing the social and ecological costs.
“The questions that must be answered are whose interests our energy systems serve, who controls them, and who pays the price?” he asked.
Bassey urged political leaders, regulatory authorities and community representatives to insist on transparency, meaningful community consent, strict compliance with environmental laws and accountability from companies involved in resource extraction.
He stressed that environmental remediation must extend beyond contracts, official commitments and technical reports to deliver actual ecosystem restoration, livelihood recovery and community participation in decisions concerning land and natural resources.
Bassey questions host-community fund provisions
The environmentalist also criticised aspects of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), particularly the governance arrangements for host-community development trusts and the provision requiring oil companies to contribute three per cent of their operating expenditure to host communities.
While acknowledging that some stakeholders had welcomed the provision, he questioned the powers granted to oil companies to appoint executive members of host-community development trust boards.
He also faulted provisions allowing trust funds to be used to repair oil company infrastructure damaged by third parties, arguing that such arrangements raised questions about accountability and the possibility of imposing collective consequences on entire communities for acts allegedly committed by individuals.
“Who determines when a facility is damaged by third parties and why criminalise entire communities for an offence that may be committed by an individual?” he asked.
He maintained that the effectiveness of the PIA and other policy frameworks should be assessed by their measurable impact on host communities and the environment rather than the promises contained in the laws.
‘Development must deliver dignity’
Addressing the graduating students, Bassey urged them to apply their leadership training to confront uncomfortable truths, resist the capture of public institutions by private interests and demand development outcomes that improve people’s lives.
He argued that development should not be measured solely by the number of roads, buildings and boreholes constructed or the volume of revenue generated, but also by whether citizens could breathe clean air, drink safe water, feed themselves, preserve their cultures and live without fear of environmental destruction.
“Justice is not a favour granted to communities by those in power. It is a right that must be respected and defended,” he said.
He challenged the graduands to take their knowledge into decision-making institutions and communities affected by public policies, insisting that the Niger Delta needed leaders willing to dismantle the structures perpetuating environmental injustice rather than merely manage its consequences.
Bassey congratulated the graduating students and welcomed incoming participants, commending Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre and the Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development for investing in leadership education.
He said the ultimate test of leadership was whether communities, institutions and ecosystems were left in better condition than they were found.
