Advocating Better Environmental Condition in Niger Delta 

Adibe Emenyonu 

A collective named Arts for Resistance gathered in Benin City recently to canvass for good living conditions for inhabitants of the oil-rich Niger Delta region. 

The Niger Delta story is incomplete without the mention of persons displaced from their environment, rivers contaminated by oil pollution, gas flaring, exploration, and exploitation, and people running away from their homeland. 

To this end, the group made up of artists and painters from the University of Benin, during an art exhibition, decided that in lieu of firearms as tools for agitation, artworks would be used to serve as a metaphor for issues of environmental degradation to draw the attention of the government to people’s sufferings and the need for proactive actions. 

The paintings capture the lives and sufferings of the Niger Delta region dwellers. From works depicting a child gazing as tongues of fire rage out of a gas flow station to the ones showing the damage of oil spillage to the earth, the exhibition is a raw, unequivocal representation of the plight of the people. 

Incidentally, all the paintings project solutions. One is to convert the flares to electricity generation; use of renewable energy; and the need to embark on massive tree planting for a greener environment to tackle climate change associated with oil pollution and other negative effects. 

One of the resource persons, Cynthia Ebere Bright, revealed the objective behind the exhibition. “What we are doing is not just for today but for future climate change as a result of the use of fossil fuels, gas flaring, crude exploration, and exploitation, and the need to endeavour to be a leading voice using arts and painting as a tool to advocate for a better environment, not just particularly in the Niger Delta but elsewhere where environmental pollution has dealt a deadly blow to the environment and inhabitants,” she says.

Another resource person, Elvira Jordan, remarked, “Arts and painting are for the voiceless in the Niger Delta. The art serves as a metaphor to depict what the Niger Delta looks like.

“When you have the heart to do what is required, you can advocate for a green environment and foster collaboration with all the paintings; we must be resilient.”

Co-Director, Arts for Resistance, Destiny Osemwengie, explained why art is crucial to the quest for a cleaner earth. 

She said: “Arts is a better way and medium of telling the public that no matter what, there are better means of transit from the current use of fossil fuel to a better future with renewable energy; to make the multinational oil companies and government accountable to whatever they must have done to people of the area.” 

The exhibition highlighted that environmental pollution in the Niger Delta came about because the government is making huge sums of money from the explorations in the region and so is less bordered by the spills.