Amid worsening ecological degradation across Nigeria, environmental advocates, academics, and community leaders have issued a resounding call for urgent legislative and policy action to safeguard the nation’s environment and future.
The demand came during the 2nd Nigeria Socio-ecological Alternatives Convergence (NSAC), held at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja.
The convergence, convened by the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), brought together participants from across Nigeria, eight African countries—including Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo—as well as international environmental justice partners. 
The event served as a platform to share ideas, review national frameworks, and push for a transformative approach to environmental governance.
One of the strongest appeals at the event was directed at the 10th National Assembly, urging it to use the ongoing constitutional review to enshrine environmental rights in Nigeria’s Constitution. HOMEF Director and convergence convener, Dr. Nnimmo Bassey, described this as a necessary step to make environmental protection justiciable and enforceable by law.
“We have examples already in South Africa and Kenya where environmental rights are fully enshrined in their constitutions. In South America, countries like Ecuador and Bolivia have embedded the Rights of Nature in theirs,” Bassey stated. “In Nigeria, we must do the same.”
Bassey argued that the legal system should recognise natural ecosystems—such as forests, rivers, rocks, hills, air, and wildlife—as legal persons to protect them from rampant abuse and exploitation. “We need to see where the hills of Abuja, including Aso Rock, are granted personhood, so people don’t just blast them away for building materials,” he said. “The environment binds us together. Disrespect for nature reflects disregard for fellow humans and future generations.” 
Warning that Nigeria’s social and environmental fabric is being stretched to the breaking point, Bassey pointed to the growing threats of desertification, deforestation, extreme pollution, coastal and gully erosion, floods, and collapsing agricultural systems. These, he said, warranted the declaration of a national environmental security state of emergency.
The NSAC Charter, developed during the convergence, sets out a bold vision of a Nigeria where ecological integrity, social justice, and economic well-being coexist. The charter’s core demands include:
- Constitutional recognition of environmental and ecological rights
- Access to clean water as a human right
- Recognition of the Rights of Nature
- A just transition to renewable energy
- Job transitioning and promotion of agroecology
- Ban on genetically modified organisms (GMOs)
- Enforcement of mining regulations and decommissioning of exhausted extractive sites
- Compensation and reparations for communities affected by environmental damage
- Protection of wetlands, reforestation, and an end to indiscriminate land reclamation
- Environmental remediation and a nationwide ecological audit
- Halt to gas flaring and rejection of false climate solutions such as carbon offsets and geoengineering
- Energy democracy and investment in affordable clean energy
- Reversal of divestments by International Oil Companies (IOCs)
- Declaration of No-Mining Zones in sensitive areas.
Bassey also referenced legal and scientific evidence of ecological devastation in Nigeria, citing the 2011 UNEP Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland and the 2023 Bayelsa State Environmental Genocide Report, which document widespread environmental harm and human rights violations in oil-producing regions.
In his keynote address, climate change specialist Professor Emmanuel Oladipo echoed the urgency, warning that environmental neglect could destabilise the nation’s economy and governance systems.
“If a nation’s environmental foundations are depleted, the economy may decline, the social fabric may deteriorate, and political structures could collapse,” he said.
“Development that is purely based on economic growth cannot be sustainable indefinitely on a finite planet. Meaningful development must reduce environmental vulnerabilities and be grounded in a comprehensive, integrated policy framework.”
The convergence also spotlighted local legislative progress, including a proposed bill by the Delta State House of Assembly seeking to grant legal personhood to River Ethiope. It further referenced the 2014 National Confab recommendations, which called for the justiciability of environmental and human rights. 
Beyond policy, the NSAC emphasised the critical role of communities in defining and driving change. According to Bassey, “Any nation that sidelines its communities is on a slippery slope. We must do all we can to stand with our people, build cohesion for socio-ecological transformation, and embed communities as key actors in shaping a just transition.”
Bassey concluded with a call for national introspection, using terms like “Yasunize” and “Ogonize” to call for the protection of ecologically sensitive areas from harmful extraction, similar to global models in Ecuador and Nigeria’s Niger Delta.
“Our leaders must arise and be true compatriots—not lords or emperors,” he said. “This is our collective space. It is our time.”
The convergence reaffirmed its commitment to building a just, sustainable Nigeria where people and nature coexist in harmony—and where ecological justice is not a slogan, but a constitutional and cultural imperative.
LV