The Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Nnimmo Bassey, has cautioned African governments anticipating that Africa will develop through crude oil exploration and investments, that the continent will soon become a dumping ground for obsolete technology, as the world moves away from fossil fuels.
He made these remark while giving his presentation on Fossil Fuels Industry and Climate Change during a virtual seminar organised by Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) to train journalists from Nigeria, Cameroun, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and South Africa on Climate Change Reporting in Africa.
Bassey stated that beyong the health hazards of extraction, the impact of this activity has made the African continent full with exploitative markets, militarised communities and contract labour that keep the people in bondage and the continent under-developed.
Bassey listed oil extraction and gas flaring, coal mining, and gold mining, as some of the extractive activities that have unleashed what he described as ‘ecocide’ on the continent, warning that new projects such as the $11 billion Dangote Refinery and Polypropylene Plant in the Lekki Free Trade Zone area of Lagos would further aggravate the situation.
Furthermore, another speaker at the event, Rachel Rose Jackson of Corporate Accountability, who spoke on The Case for Holding Big Polluters Liable, explained that climate change was an existential threat caused by fossil fuels corporations.
