by Chidi Odinkalu
When it concluded its investigation of the impact of hydro-carbons exploration in parts of the Nigeria Delta, especially in Ogoniland, in August 2011, the United Nations Environmental Programme, (UNEP) found dangerous levels of cancer-causing elements, such as Benzene “up to 900 times above World Health Organisation (WHO) standards”. These cancer-causing substances were the result of chronic pollution caused by blow-outs, spills, and flaring from sub-standard oil field operations.
The result is that more than anywhere else in the region and beyond, the Niger-Delta presents an unusually high cluster and pathology of cancers. This dimension of the human tragedy of oil exploration in the Niger Delta has not received adequate attention in the struggle over the division of the spoils from the rich natural resources of the Delta. Yet, for most of the last quarter century, it has been the focus of quiet advocacy by a committed community of activists intent on bringing about more responsible exploration of the rich resources of the Delta.
In the early hours of April 9, 2015, the Niger-Delta’s carcinogens consumed a very significant victim: Oronto Natei Douglas, better known as OND, who finally lost a prolonged battle with stomach cancer, was widely known as one of the closest advisers to Nigeria’s outgoing President, Goodluck Jonathan. In fact, Oronto was an incomparable inspiration and voice for sustainable and responsible exploitation of the Niger-Delta’s petroleum resources. He made his name as the foremost advocate from Africa for human rights and a leader in the global movement for environmental justice.
As a staffer of the National Secretariat of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), I visited the Rivers State University of Science and Technology (RSUST) in 1990, on a membership recruitment drive. OND was to join the CLO as a result of that encounter. He brought with him a deep conviction that the human rights struggles of the CLO should engage with the livelihood struggles of the peoples of the Niger Delta and persuaded the organisation to invest in ensuring that it did so adequately.
In time, the CLO’s initial engagement with environmental human rights was spun off as the Environmental Rights Action (ERA), which OND co-founded with Rev. Nnimmo Bassey and Uche Onyeagocha, who, despite being a leading opposition politician in the All Progressives Congress, remained a lifelong confidante. This was only the first in what would become several advocacy organizations to be inspired or founded by OND. Following the consummation of a merger with the global environmental behemoth, Friends of the Earth International, the organisation later became known as Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth, later electing Rev. Nnimmo Bassey as its Global President.
Early in his career, OND identified his specialization in environmental law, receiving a graduate degree in this field from the De Montfort University in Leicester, England. In 1994, he became one of the youngest members of the legal team that represented Ken Saro-Wiwa and the other Ogoni activists in the trial over the murders in January 1994 of some leaders of the Ogoni community in Giokoo, in Ogoni, Rivers State. Following the conviction execution of Saro-Wiwa and his eight other co-triallists in 1995, OND was both active and vocal in the ultimately unsuccessful international advocacy to save their lives.
In the five-year period between 1996 and 2,000, OND was involved in the start-up of two other advocacy organizations. One, Project Underground, based in San Francisco, California, was devoted to advocating against environmentally unsustainable mining practices of multi-nationals exploiting solid minerals in developing countries of the global south. The other, OilWatch International, undertook similar tasks with reference to the exploitation of petroleum resources, especially in Africa. He also co-authored the classic on the Niger Delta struggles, Where Vultures Feast.
Democratizing Human Happiness
Simultaneously, OND also inspired the creation of close partnerships between civic and youth organizations in the Niger Delta. The result was the creation in 1997 of the Chikoko Movement, also known as the Pan-Niger Delta Movement, emerging as its founding leader. As implied by its mission, Chikoko Movement reached across the atomization of the groups in the Niger Delta to forge a pan-Niger Delta identity. Its membership comprised the major ethnicities of the Niger Delta, including the Andonis, Ogonis, Ijaws, Ikwerres, Itsekiri, Urhobos, Ilajes. Its footprint included Rivers State in the East and extended to Ondo State in the West.
By the time of the return to civilian rule in 1999, OND was already a major leader in the Niger Delta. The government of Diepreye Alamieyeseigha would later tap him to become a member of the Cabinet in Bayelsa State with responsibility for strategy and information, where he worked with then Deputy Governor, Goodluck Jonathan. When Alamieyeseigha was later impeached on serious corruption charges, Oronto courageously resigned his position in Cabinet and declined to accept a return to the Cabinet of then Governor Jonathan.
Meanwhile, reflecting his advocacy and professional commitments, OND opened a new vista in human capital investment in 2002, when he founded the Community Defence Law Foundation (CDLF) in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. The mission of the CDLF, entirely coined by OND, is to “encourage, support, defend and sponsor the growth of intellectual and material capital with a view to democratize human happiness” by providing “formal and non-formal support to disadvantaged individuals and communities, defending their human and environmental rights so as to aid survival”.
In pursuit of this objective, the CDLF focused on childhood education and awareness in the Delta. It built and maintains a nursery and kindergarten academy in Okoroba, Bayelsa state, from which children from this water-bound fishing community receive first-rate foundational education at no cost or fee. In addition, the CDLF has built and maintains a network of nine community libraries in four states of the federation, all from private sources and donations. Together with the Resource Access Foundation (RAF), also founded by OND, CDLF would become his life’s consuming passions. A man who had few needs and cared very little about material acquisitions, OND poured all his resources, networks and goodwill into both entities and on equipping the children of the Delta with the foundations for a knowledge-based world.
Thank You and Good-Bye
Despite his fearsome reputation as an advocate for the Niger Delta, OND was uncompromising in his belief in the integrity and indivisibility of Nigeria. He maintained an extensive network of associates across the country and despite failing health in the past year, travelled extensively around the country to keep these relationships. In 2005, OND was one of the delegates of the Niger Delta to the National Political Reform Conference organised by the administration of former President, Olusegun Obasanjo. As a member of the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, he wrote the only minority report at the conference. Dated 9 May 2005, his report began:
“Nigeria, a country endowed and uncommonly blessed by God with enormous natural resources, is under threat by the vagaries of environmental degradation, namely: desertification, deforestation, oil and industrial pollution, gas flaring, gully, coastal and sheet erosion and loss of biodiversity among others. …Poverty, illiteracy and social injustice are dangerous incendiaries that have been identified as by-products of inhospitable environments. It is imperative that solutions woven around respect for fairness, equity and justice are applied as antidote against these ills.”
Even he did not know how far-sighted these thoughts would become. Two years later, OND became staff member of the Presidency, a role in which he spent the last eight years of his life. Most people never knew nor realized that for nearly all of that period, he was also a cancer patient. To his tasks in this role, he brought characteristic grace, humour, passion, candour, optimism and remarkable bravery. In 2011, OND was instrumental in securing prompt assent to the Freedom of Information Act and to the amended National Human Rights Commission Act. In 2014, he did the same with the National Health Act.
In his final week on earth, OND helped to secure the safe landing for Nigeria in the presidential elections. He was a key architect of the unprecedented presidential concession in Nigeria’s 2015 general elections.
Two things you could never miss about Oronto were his burning passion and acute intellect. As an advocate, OND was peerless. His passion, he explained, probably came from his humble origins. He was born in August 1966 of parents who came from the fishing settlement of Okoroba, Bayelsa State. For his passion and clarity of values, he credits his father, a devout man of faith who brought two different Christian denominations to the community. OND had much of his basic education in the Niger Delta and also in what is now Ogun State from where he acquired his fluency in the Egba dialect of the Yoruba language.
On the day last month that he was advised that the cancer was terminal, OND sent messages of thanks to all the doctors, nurses and friends with whom he had battled the ailment. Four days before his passing, we had breakfast together, comprising, bread, sardine, tea and water. He had been fully advised that there wasn’t a lot of time left to which he replied: “that is the verdict of man. I await God’s verdict and I’m entirely comfortable with whatever He says.” Referring to his long battle with cancer, he smiled: “God gave me seven years to say thank you and good bye. I have been shown love, kindness, care. I’ve had an opportunity to say thank you. I have nothing to regret.” He didn’t have or need to say that he’d more than requited all these in even greater measure. He is survived by his wife, Tari, and two young sons.
