Environmental advocates from the past (2)

THE Nigerian Environmental Action/Study Team (NEST) was not the only star in the sky. The intellectuals who were members of that formidable team happened to be one of the brightest and the best. They were focused on research and information dissemination before they took on community projects.

In no particular order, next to NEST in my consciousness was Friends of the Environment, (FOTE) led by Eng. (Mrs.) Joanna Olu Maduka. The initiator/founder of this hands-on advocacy group is ‘Nigeria’s first female registered engineer, founder of Professional Women Engineers of Nigeria, a former member of the Board of Directors of NNPC and a former member of the United Nations Advisory Board on Science and Technology for Development. The Secretariat is coordinated by the General Secretary. She is also the current president of the Nigerian Academy of Engineering. The non-governmental agency according to Internet records was established in 1993.”

If the moving spirit behind the organisation has so many feathers in her cap then the richness of ideas is located in text and should be read by all who are concerned with our past. The website of the organisation says “FOTE’s primary goal as an NGO, is to initiate and undertake programmes and activities that address the needs of identified groups that impact on the environment. One of FOTE’s primary strategies in attaining its goal is the use of awareness campaigns to enlighten and educate people about the many environmental concerns and the impact each concern has on the larger society.” The information continues with a definition of what they mean by impact.

“To impact meaningfully and positively on the environment, FOTE recognises the significant role played by technology. The use of technology in many processes and endeavours increases efficiency, and therefore promotes sustainability. More specifically, the use of ICT in many aspects of today’s world has the most significant impact on lives and the environment. The improper use of ICT processes can be as detrimental to the environment, as the proper use can be of great advantage. It is therefore a priority that people, especially the younger members of the society, are empowered appropriately in ICT use and applications.” Though the organization was conceived and brought to life by one of Nigeria’s older generation, its present administration is now in younger hands.   

In fact, just as Ifeanyi Abiodun Maduka has been a Director in FOTE since 2004 until present, the Nigerian Environmental Action/Study Team has decided to bring in young, fresh blood to pilot the affairs of the organisation. You may not read it anywhere else but Professor David Okali has decided to disengage from NEST governance from the end of this year, 2020. He has put in many years of meritorious services and this nation owes him awards and accolades.

One thing I have come to appreciate is that Nigeria’s environmental advocacy movement is not dominated by age, gender or educational background. For instance, Ms. Sola Alamutu is the Executive Director of Children and the Environment, CATE, which has run for over 20 years, mostly under the radar of publicity. The main goal of the organisation is promoting environmental health issues amongst Children and Young People. Ms. Alamutu is also Co-founder, President of Beach Samaritans, a volunteer-based organisation which promotes eco-tourism in Nigeria, through cleaning of public beaches. Her story and passion “stems from the fact that she grew up in a clean ‘green environment’ in Ikoyi with gardens and trees along streets. She also had lots of fruit trees in her home environment with her mother and herself planting tomatoes, okra, peppers and other vegetables. In addition, Nature study was her favorite subject in primary school – Corona School Ikoyi.”

CATE may not have a large electronic footprint from which a web crawler can easily appropriate information from. The organisation is very present on different social media platforms where they share images of their periodic activities. The main objectives of CATE is environmental education and awareness raising.

If my memory serves me right the concept of environmental education has a history and I will detain you briefly my own perspective.

In Nigeria, the concept and practice of Environmental Education and awareness could be said to be many years behind the global trends and theories.  The debate whether to make Environmental Education an integral part of the curriculum occupied the front burners. The primary school syllabus had in a way incorporated environmental awareness into the content of one of the social science studies — Civics and Nature Study. Both then played the role which environmental education would have played. 

IT is still to be seen how environmental issues will be reflected more as a way of life than as a single subject, which attracts no credit points.  However, in the secondary schools and tertiary institutions the story was a little bit different. Environmental education formed a part of the extra-curricular activities in most schools in Lagos State, also environmental protection clubs were springing up in the different ecological zones in the country.  Further, the tree planting clubs in the communities which predated both the conservation and environmental protection clubs in schools were also showing interests in the school area.

A casual observation on the activities and potentials of the clubs revealed a series of flaws and structural limitations that may have hindered the effectiveness and continuity of the clubs.  Principal amongst which were:

a). Lack of a central coordinating institution outside of Government-control.

b). Lack of resource materials that suit the educational status of the

members.

c). Networking among the schools and teachers interested in environmental education as a way of life not just as duty or routine.

However, the activities of two associations must be highlighted in this reflection about the past.

Nigerian Field Society (NFS) was founded in 1930 by Mr. A. F. B. Bridges. The NFS had a school outreach programme that emphasized the appreciation of nature with a view of inculcating the culture of conservation in the students and also to create a pool of potential members for the NFS in later years. This, in my opinion was a way of sustaining membership and continuity.  Apart from the very informative Newsletter, there were not many school-age materials produced by NFS.

If NFS did not produce school-age materials, the same cannot be said of the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF). It was established in 1980 but was subsequently registered in 1982 as a Charitable Trust under the Land (Perpetual Succession) Act of 1961 — a policy that was replaced by the Company and Allied Matters Act of 1990. NCF was founded by late Chief S. L. Edu. “The Foundation is a BirdLife International Partner in Nigeria, an associate of Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) and member of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Other notable international partners include Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), Wetlands International as well as Fauna and Flora International (FFI).”

 The organisation much more than any other has been involved in all the ramifications of environmental education.  For instance, NCF was involved in the design of the curriculum and policy issues at both the national and state levels.  Also the organisation sustained the production of multi-media resource materials for schools and has an active schools’ outreach programme conducted from the resource centre, based at the entrance of their nature trail in Lekki Peninsular.

There is no way the story of NCF can be told without the many advocates who added their voices and expertise to make sure that NCF was the Flagship NGO. Dr. Pius Anadu, a former professor in the Zoology department of the University of Benin, was one of the Nigerian faces who piloted the affairs of the ship. In a recent email exchange, Bill Knight, one of the expatriates who worked at NCF, recalled an instance with Dr. Anadu: “there is (sadly) just one anecdote about Pius that remains firmly sketched out in my memory: the others have largely faded away. But it is a good story, I believe, because it helps us remember that when Nigeria was suffering so badly from not just the environmental pollution of oil but also from its pollution of moral and social values, not everyone was greedy! Pius was such a person. As the Director of NCF he remained humble and careful, neither becoming the “Big Man” nor the “Big Spender”… as witnessed by the fact that since NCF did not have much money, Director or not, when travelling of official duty with Pius, he insisted, en route, that he and I saved NCF funds by sharing a hotel bed!”

Apart from moving from state to state in Nigeria, Bill Knight also worked up in the North East, “either as a pro-tem manager of the NCF-et al, bird-related “Hadejia-Nguru Wetlands Project” or as a community-awareness and mass-mobilisation facilitator with the North East Arid Zone Development Programme.”   

One name that hovered around the Ikoyi offices of NCF was that of Chief (Izoma) Philip Asiodu, one of those Nigerians of my generation remember as one of the super permanent secretaries. Around five years ago, the federal government rightly honoured him with an Environmental Friendly award. Mrs. Ajoke Mohammed, the wife of late General Muritala Mohammed was also honoured at the same event.

Phil Hall and Carolyn Hall are names that will also remain the Environmental Hall of Fame. You can read reports of 10 years ago by Phil Hall on the website of African Bird Club. His first report was in 2010 while the last was in 2012.

He started by giving the status of conservation projects. “In conjunction with APLORI, (African Bird Club) ABC is now directly involved in conservation projects across the country. These are Amurum, Jos; Yankari Game Reserve; Hadejia-Nguru Wetlands; Becheve Nature Reserve; Afi Forest Reserve; IITA Ibadan. At all of these sites, the bird populations are monitored on a regular basis. There is concern about the increased poaching pressures in Yankari and; in Afi Forest Reserve about the extent of both illegal hunting and logging. The general insecurity currently prevailing in northern Nigeria has prevented any visits to the Hadejia-Nguru wetlands for the past six months.  Conservation concerns; apart from the pressures on all protected areas by the burgeoning population in Nigeria, there are major concerns about the decline in the populations of all large bird species in Nigeria. The most obvious example is the complete extirpation of all the large species of vulture in the country and even the once abundant Hooded Vulture is now restricted to isolated pockets. All the larger species of vulture appear to have suffered a similar fate and other species such as Marabous and Wood Ibis are now very rarely encountered. Crowned Cranes, the national bird of Nigeria, are now only found in one small part of the Chad Basin National Park. There also seems to have been a noticeable decline in many birds of prey species with Martial Eagles in particular now hardly ever recorded.  Significant Bird Sightings / Discoveries There were no particularly significant bird sightings or discoveries during the year.” 

To some Nigerians reading the excerpt above, Bird watching may appear to be a strange hobby of expatriates but it is not really so. There are so many Nigerians who use Bird watching as a means of relaxation and also as a means of monitoring the health of the environment.

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AS we end this very brief reflection of the environmental movement in Nigeria, let us conclude with a brief conversation with, Seun Ogunseitan, one of the journalists who ran with the toxic waste story initiated by Nigerian students based in Italy. To put the past in its proper context Alfie Nze, a columnist for NaijaTimes has a two-part story on how it all happened.

Seun Ogunseitan was of course more than the Koko toxic story, he was very passionate with greater developmental issues.                                                                       

‘Protection of environment taken for granted here’ – Ogunseitan

DO you have a paragraph or two about your time as an environmental news hunter?

Seun Ogunseitan: One would have expected that reporting on the Environment should be easy in a society that is supposedly closer to nature. But the opposite is really the case in Nigeria where the people have come to see the environment and many living things in it as nature’s bounty specifically made available by the almighty, all-capable God of infinite provisions, to take care of the needs of men. Environmental protection reports preaching care and conservation of natural resources were therefore tough.

So, what initial challenges did you encounter reporting on environmental conservation, industrial pollution and over consumption by the elites?

Writing on environmental conservation and industrial pollution in a country with chronic shortage of factories to employ teeming millions of unemployed youths, is akin to writing that unemployment and joblessness is better for the environment than the people. Writing against wasteful and environmentally destructive consumption by the elites in the Nigeria as in many underdeveloped parts of the world is akin to asking the rich and affluent elites not to show they are better than the poor and needy.

How will you describe your time as a reporter of environmental issues, were you satisfied or frustrated?

…because to me it was more of a passion and a calling, I merely saw the challenges as necessary hurdles one encounters rather than as frustrations. This was more so because I was convinced that the agony of death, disease and poverty that will result from a capitulation if I allowed myself to be frustrated away from reporting on the hazards of poor environmental awareness, will be worse than whatever emotional lows I may have in the course of convincing the people to change their ways or embrace particular attitudes.

Looking back now, how will you rate Federal Environmental Protection Agency (FEPA)

Within the scope of its mandate and considering the environment in which it was operating, the then FEPA, now NESREA, did well but can and should now do better than it is doing, because the people are now more environment-conscious than when it was first setup.

How will you rate the NGOS that focused on the environment in your time?

I believe the NGOs were more purposeful and independent 30 years ago than they are now.

What are your projections for environmental journalism and the future of Nigeria’s environment?

I see good prospects for the growth of environmental journalism in Nigeria as the country goes full cycle in the environment, development and underdevelopment conundrum. I see a future of more environmentally aware citizen. But it would have been at great cost as a lot may have been lost environmentally, before the citizens get to that level of enlightenment. For example, a large number of citizens may have been lost to avoidable cancer cases before Nigerians start accepting to be more environmentally circumspect.

Conclusion:

Restoring honour to Tunde Akingbade

THIS journey of over 2000 words should end where it started. The first part was dedicated to Tunde Akingbade and it is just logical that a few words from his website are lifted to end this reflection. Many of our readers may not know that Tunde has been down with a stroke and unable to do what he loves to do best. His story which “won in the CNN nomination out of about 1800 entries in Africa was done on Eko Atlantic City. It was published in the Guardian on Sunday on November 6, 2011. Titled ‘Eko Atlantic City-Rumbles in the Sea, the story “took nine months of investigation and it took the encouragement of Mr. Jahman Anikulapo, Editor, The Guardian on Sunday for me to finalise the investigation. The idea of the story was actually got in Abuja and not Lagos itself, but it shifted to Lagos and I shuttled between Lagos and Abuja to put finishing touches to the story. It was actually borne out of my curiosity and attempt to see the other side of the coin.” The rest of Tunde Akingbade’s story can be read at

Post-Script: A few tress were killed in the process of this work-in-progress, we hope the loss will be made up with your renewed dedication for a better environment.