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Land Grabbing, Extractivism, And Climate Change [The Impacts On Communities]

By Nnimmo Bassey
The challenges confronting our communities and people generally are interconnected. They are often analyzed and presented as though they operate in silos. The reality is that they operate in intricately connected webs and must be understood as such. Our lands are grabbed for extractive or exploitative purposes. Extractivism in turn drives climate change. Climate change in turn triggers more extraction, soil
degradation as well as land resource issues. The cycle goes on until we take action to break it. The purpose of this conversation is for us to unpack the components of the crises, locate the critical nodes and points of vulnerability, and act to propel transformation using cultural tools.
We will together look at three key things: Land grabbing, extractivism,
and climate change. As already noted, they are interconnected and are not necessarily hierarchical or sequential.
Land grabbing
Ownership of land in Nigeria was historically in the hands of
individuals or communities. Today, through a military decree promulgated on 29th March 1978, communities have been dispossessed of their lands
while ownership has been claimed by the state, euphemistically on behalf of the dispossessed. By virtue of the overbearing control of the military over the county’s governance structure, that Decree was inserted in the 1999 Constitution and barricaded in as inviolable. In other words, there should be no debate over its operations. The forced supremacy of the Land Use Act can be seen in its section 47 (1) which states that the Act is literally an outlaw and shall have effect notwithstanding anything to the contrary in any law including the constitution.
The Land Use Decree or Act was designed in a colonial template of
resource appropriation that deprives the colonized of the fundamental resource and ensures that it is owned and used to meet the utilitarian needs or other means of enjoyment of the colonizers. Those whose lands are grabbed may only be compensated for the loss of economic crops and improvements on the land. In practice, the compensations have been grossly inadequate, if not outrightly insulting. Consider for example a payment of N100 for a mango tree when one mango fruit could go as much and such a tree would bear hundreds of fruit for several years.
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Lands may be grabbed by different means, and for diverse purposes. By the Land Use Act, the government can grab any land by declaring that it is required for the public good. The use of such land would invariably change, with dire consequences. A forest could be cleared and replaced with a plantation or cash crops for export. A poor community could be demolished, the people get displaced and then their territory could be replaced with expensive resorts, hotels, or gated estates. Wetlands can be sand-filled and taken up for infrastructural purposes. The list goes on.
The Nigerian government claims ownership of minerals and petroleum resources in the subsoil. So our lands can be grabbed for mining or oil and gas extraction, ostensibly for the common good. Because this often happens without free prior informed consent, when the people are called stakeholders what it means is that while the company and government share the profits, the communities own the pollution. This is also why such pollution is hardly ever cleaned up.
Land can also be directly grabbed through pollution. Two quick examples can show how this happens. A polluted stream by an oil spill becomes the waste dump of the polluter and usage for fishing or potable water is lost. Secondly, dumping of wastes on a parcel of land takes that land out of the control of communities. Often pollution is not an accidental exercise. It is used to dispose communities of their land and creeks and for the exploiter to assume ownership without accountability, responsibility, or a sense of respect for the owners.
Our quest for development without questions also permits lands to be
grabbed for infrastructural development. Often such lands are taken without prior informed consent.
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Our culture and language are tied to our land and our liberation is
connected to both. Our culture nourishes and empowers us to stand against the commodification of Nature and of life. It helps us to defend what belongs to us. It draws boundaries that no one must cross. Our culture is our power!
Extractivism
Extractivism as a concept covers a complex of self-reinforcing
practices, mentalities, and power differentials that promote and excuse socio-ecologically destructive modes of organizing life through colonialism, militarization, depletion, and dispossession. It is a mode of capitalist exploitation…
Although extractivism is used mostly in terms of mining and oil
extraction, it is also present in farming, forestry, fishing, and in the
provision of care. According to an entry in Wikipedia, “Extractivism is
the removal of natural resources particularly for export with minimal
processing. This economic model is common throughout the Global South and the Arctic region, but also happens in some sacrifice zones in the Global North in European extractivism.”
Extractivism destroys lands, pollutes the ocean, and destroys water bodies and wetlands. It results and feeds on land grabs, and sea grabs and is aiming at sky grabs with a rise in space enterprises.
Climate change
The fact that climate change is driven by dependence on fossil fuels — oil, gas, and coal — is well known. The main challenge is that the world keeps a blind eye to what communities suffer in the oil fields and focuses mostly on chasing carbon molecules in the atmosphere. This lack of focus on both ends of the pipeline has left communities destitute by damaging their lands and water bodies and thereby destroying their food systems, economies, and cultures.
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The gradual agreement to terminate the petroleum civilization, and Yasunize the world, implies that the time to remediate and restore lands damaged by oil and gas extraction has come. This remediation and restoration must be accompanied by reparation.
Our communities have suffered multiple impacts from climate change, extractivism, and land grabbing. Persistent pollution has been the lot of our communities. Studies such as the UNEP assessment of the Ogoni Environment and the recently published Bayelsa Environment and Oil Commission’s report titled Environmental Genocide all show the dire situation. Some communities have their soils contaminated with hydrocarbons to depths exceeding 10 meters. Waters are polluted with
benzene and other carcinogens. The air is grossly polluted with a
cocktail of noxious gases through gas flaring. These pollution do not
readily disappear on their own. They must be consciously tackled and cleaned up. And the time for that is now.
Other impacts of climate change include sea level rise, coastal erosion and salinization of the ocean. These affect local livelihoods and equally, provoke conflicts or displacement of communities.
Cultural resistance
Our lands are healed when extraction and land grabbing are challenged and overcome. A major tool for successful resistance is our happiness. That is the source of our power. A happy community cannot easily be defeated.
Another key tool is our love. Our love for one another and our love for our land and culture. Love reinforces solidarity. Beyond love, we must build stubborn hope as an antidote to despondency. Hope empowers action. It emboldens.
Boldness empowers the telling of truth, including the reportage of
destructive extraction and land grabbing. The oppressed must remain emboldened by the knowledge that while the rich worry about the end of the world, workers and exploited communities worry about the end of the day and have deep stakes in what happens tomorrow.
To resolutely stand against land grabbing and extractivism and also build resilience against climate change our communities need Care and Repair Teams (CARTs) as key agents for overcoming trauma, stressors, and illnesses. These teams can also be agents to press for remediation, restoration, repairing, and reparation. These demands and their attainment require the use of every tool of cultural resistance.
Nnimmo Bassey is a renowned environmental activist and Executive Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF)
News
VIDEO: Why I’ve Never Tried Convincing My Christian Wife To Convert To Islam — Tinubu

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has explained why he has never attempted to convince his wife, First Lady Oluremi Tinubu, to convert to Islam, stressing his belief in love, religious freedom, and mutual respect among people of different faiths.
Speaking on Saturday at the funeral service of Nana Lydia Yilwatda, mother of the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Prof. Nentawe Yilwada, Tinubu said his marriage to a Christian pastor has never created any conflict in their home.
The president, who arrived in Jos, Plateau State around 2 p.m. for the ceremony at the COCIN headquarters church, said he inherited Islam from his family and has always upheld the principle of freedom of religion.
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He noted that both he and the First Lady serve the same God and would ultimately be answerable to Him, adding that what matters most are people’s deeds, character, and love for others.
Tinubu urged Nigerians to embrace tolerance and peaceful coexistence, emphasising that hate should never have a place in the country.
He also prayed for the repose of the soul of the late Lydia Yilwada and asked God to grant comfort and blessings to those she left behind.
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He said, “Hate is not an option for us. Love is what you preach, that we should love one another.
“Nobody, nobody determines what God has ordained. God’s ordained action and his promises are what matter. I inherited Islam from my family. I didn’t change. But my wife is a pastor. She prays for me.
“No conflict. And I never did at any single time try to convince her or convert her. I believe in the freedom of religion.
“We are praying to the same God. We are answerable to the same almighty God. We will answer to him. We will account to him. Our deeds, our character, our love for our fellow beings are what are important.
“May the almighty accept the soul of Lydia and give all that she left behind blessings and glory, so we say, may her soul rest in peace.”
News
UK Police Quiz Six After Fatal Synagogue Attack

Six people arrested on suspicion of “terrorism”-linked offences after a fatal car-ramming and knife attack on a UK synagogue remained in police custody on Saturday, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged people not to take part in pro-Palestinian protests.
Two people were killed and three others seriously wounded in Thursday’s attack in northwestern Manchester on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
Police shot dead the assailant, Jihad Al-Shamie, a 35-year-old UK citizen of Syrian descent, within minutes of the alarm being raised.
Three men and three women are in custody.
The attack has heightened fear among Britain’s Jewish community.
Police said they were patrolling places of worship across the city “with a particular focus on providing a high-visibility presence within our Jewish communities”.
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The attack on Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in north Manchester was one of the worst antisemitic incidents in Europe since the October 7, 2023, attack in Israel led by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.
The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive on the Gaza Strip has killed at least 66,288 Palestinians, also mostly civilians, according to health ministry figures in the occupied territory that the United Nations considers reliable.
The Gaza conflict has inflamed passions in Britain, with frequent pro-Palestinian rallies in cities that some critics allege have stoked antisemitism.
A “global movement for Gaza UK” protest went ahead in London late on Thursday, with police making 40 arrests.
London’s Metropolitan Police asked organisers delay another planned demonstration backing the banned Palestine Action group later on Saturday.
However, organisers Defend Our Juries rejected the calls.
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A spokesman said the group “stood in solidarity” with the Jewish community over the attack.
– Accidental shooting –
Starmer urged protesters not to join the pro-Palestinian rally.
“I urge anyone thinking about protesting this weekend to recognise and respect the grief of British Jews. This is a moment of mourning. It is not a time to stoke tension and cause further pain,” he said on X.
During the attack, Shamie was seen “with a big knife, banging his knife into the glass, trying to get through”, synagogue chairman of trustees Alan Levy, who helped barricade the doors, told ITV News.
“The heroes of the congregation who saw what was happening then came to the doors because he was trying to break the doors down to get in,” he added.
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A UK police watchdog, meanwhile, said it would look at the police shooting of Shamie.
The probe would also look at the shooting of a second victim who suffered a fatal gunshot and a third person who was shot but survived.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said there was no evidence anyone other than police used firearms at the scene.
“Our independent investigation will look at the circumstances surrounding the fatal police shooting of Jihad Al-Shamie,” it said in a statement.
“A post mortem has today (Friday) concluded another man who died at the scene suffered a fatal gunshot wound.”
IOPC investigations are standard practice in situations where the use of force by police may have resulted in the death of a member of the public.
News
Edo Inaugurates Committee On Drug Abuse, Healthy Living

Edo State Government has inaugurated Drug Control Committee for the state and local governments, aimed at curbing the menace of drug abuse in the state.
Inaugurating the committee, Governor Monday Okpehbolo said the committee was not only saddled with the responsibility of curbing the menace of illicit substances, but to promote healthier living across communities in the state.
Represented by his deputy, Hon. Dennis Idahosa, Okpebholo described the initiative as “a vital step in our unwavering commitment to stopping the menace of drug trafficking and substance use among youths.”
The governor, who bemoaned the rising tide of drug dependency and its impact on society, pointed out that the committee’s creation aligns with the national drug master plan and represents a bold stride toward protecting Edo future generations.
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On his part, Chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa, represented by ACGN, Fidelis Cocodia, Zonal Commander, Zone 13, emphasised grassroots interventions, awareness campaigns, and support systems as the backbone of the fight against drug abuse.
Edo State commander of the NDLEA, Mitchell Ofoyeju disclosed that while national drug use prevalence stands at 14.4 percent, Edo state surpasses the average at 15 percent.
He noted that the state is one of the hardest-hit states in the country, warning that the trend has fueled crime and heightened youth vulnerability.
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The state’s Commissioner for Health, Dr. Cyril Oshiomhole pledged to make Edo a model in drug control through rehabilitation, youth enlightenment, and second-chance opportunities for recovering addicts.
Coordinator, Office of the First Lady, Edo State, Mrs. Edesili Okpebholo Anani, described drug abuse as a pandemic, noting that “you hardly see a crime without drugs being involved.”
She added that women’s empathy and influence must be harnessed in the campaign against drug abuse.
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