At some point in 1994, appropriately while on the run from General Sani Abacha’s goons, Nnimmo Bassey became a born-again Christian. Known before then as an irreverent cartoonist, satirist, architect, poet and rights activist, not a few among his circle of friends wondered if the new Bassey would not heed the meek Christ of turn-the-other-cheek above the “activist” who drove money-changers from the temple with a whip.
They needed not have worried. In naming Bassey a Hero of the Environment in 2009, Time magazine gives international recognition to his unwavering commitment to environmental activism defined by a philosophy that scorns any equivocation in the defence of the earth as humanity’s shared habitat. In 2000, Bassey was ordained a minister, at which point the earth became his parish on behalf of which he preached a sermon that said in effect, “We are deserving of our residence on earth only on condition of being its uncompromising custodians.” To Bassey, the struggle for social justice is inseparable from a dedicated effort to maintain the delicate balance of our threatened eco-systems. And that there can be no sustainable development without the participation of local communities with irreplaceable knowledge of husbanding and replenishing the earth. It is a hard-headed philosophy informed by the best ethics of the spiritual and secular worlds in each of which Bassey has a leg firmly planted, making him architect and archdeacon in equal measures.
A moment like this calls for some story-telling. I first met Bassey as a sophomore in law at the University of Benin where he was the principal architect. Bassey would later lead the university’s physical planning team to design the temporary administration building and the Vice Chancellor’s lodge. That was during the turbulent period of General Babangida’s invasion of the universities in search of radicals and extremists. The vice-chancellor, Professor Grace Alele-Williams, gladly delivered several scalps, among them those of Dr Festus Iyayi, president of ASUU at the time, and Professor Itse Sagay, dean of law. This was meant as dire warning to all outspoken members of the increasingly restive universities, whether on the faculty or in the administration. Bassey, a regular on the op-ed pages of The Guardian and Vanguard, became visibly disenchanted — or “disgruntled,” in the power-speak — and soon enough quit the Ivory Sewer to set up Base Consult, his private architectural practice, just outside the university. And it is here that the idea of a human rights approach to the defence of the environment took seed, bloomed and flourishes now to worldwide acclaim.
The Environmental Rights Action, partner group of global watchdogs, Friends of the Earth and OilWatch, began as a project of the CLO where Bassey was a member of the governing board and chairman of its southern zone. The fortuitous meeting of Bassey, Oronto Douglas, Nick Ashton-Jones and Godwin Uyi Ojo led to several shocking exposés on the mindless devastation of the environment by oil and timber companies such as Shell in Iko (Akwa Ibom) and WEMCO at Omo Forest (Ondo), to cite only two examples. The effect was as crucial for the emergence of an environmental consciousness in Nigeria as the CLO’s uncovering in 1987 of the horrors of Ita-Oko, an off-shore prison built under General Obasanjo as military head of state, was for civil liberties. It was soon clear that ERA needed a wider field of vision than the CLO’s fulcrum of political liberties would allow. Not even the compromise of semi-autonomy marked by the new name, ERA/CLO, would widen this field by the needed acreage. The debate was often passionate, for ERA had come to deepen the CLO’s work in a way that added to its prestige at home and abroad, but the CLO voted wisely to let the child strike out and come into his own.
This decision freed ERA under Bassey to synthesise its mission from indigenous principles of harmonious natural resource management, Christian teachings on egalitarianism and the international declaration of human rights. The result is a charter of struggle for the attainment of social justice. Driven like only a pastor — in the true sense of herdsman, shepherd — can be about his flock, it is no surprise that Bassey’s e-mail signature is a plea, borrowed from the great Psalmist, to the principalities and powers of earth on behalf of the oppressed, exploited and downtrodden: “How long will you keep judging and favouring evil people? Be fair to the poor and orphans. Defend the helpless and everyone in need. Rescue the weak and homeless from the powerful hands of heartless people.” These are the slogans that inform Bassey’s vision of a habitable and sustainable earth. And for his steadfastness, he was driven underground for four months in 1994 as his brother-in-law was held hostage, was arrested and detained by the SSS for several days in October 1997 and had his passport impounded for long periods.
Bassey, who has published four collections of poems, including the grim title, We Thought It Was Oil But It Was Blood, has also been General Secretary of the Association of Nigerian Authors. Let us give three hearty cheers to the Reverend Architect Nnimmo Bassey, a hero of the environment.
Ifowodo, formerly of the CLO, teaches poetry and literature at Texas State University in the United States.
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© Ogaga Ifowodo
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