PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria — In a blistering public rebuke of both oil majors and the Nigerian state, delegates who gathered under the banner, participants at the People’s Environmental Assembly organised by We The People on 26 September 2025 issued a string of resolutions that read like a demand for reckoning.
The assembly called for an immediate halt to divestment moves in the Niger Delta. They demanded an urgent audit of seven decades of health and ecological damage from oil extraction. There should be an outright stop to any effort to resume oil operations in Ogoni. A review of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) is necessary.
They advocated for equal accountability for the Nigerian state alongside foreign oil companies. Global solidarity and partnerships were emphasized. They pledged to build a new generation of activists.
The demand to freeze divestments is not symbolic. In recent months, international human rights experts have issued warnings about rapid asset sales by oil companies in Nigeria. These sales have too often shifted liabilities. As a result, they have left communities without remediation or compensation.
A United Nations working group and independent reporting have flagged transactions. These transactions proceeded without adequate clean-up commitments. This effectively offloads social and environmental costs onto communities. It also burdens weaker national institutions. The assembly’s call signals deep alarm that fresh rounds of sales will replicate earlier patterns of abandonment.
Why the urgency The Niger Delta has been a theatre of environmental destruction since commercial production began in the 1950s. The United Nations Environmental Programme’s landmark assessment of Ogoniland concluded that contamination of land, creeks, and groundwater is extensive. Restoration will be long, complex, and expensive.
UNEP warned that contaminated drinking water poses systemic threats to public health. Poisoned farmlands and degraded mangroves also threaten livelihoods. This verdict still echoes across the Delta. The Port Harcourt assembly’s call for a 70-year audit is therefore a demand for truth. It is a call for a ledger that finally quantifies the scale of damage and who must pay.
Public health fallout is documented in the peer reviewed literature. Studies of Niger Delta populations living near oil and gas operations report higher rates of respiratory illness. They also report higher rates of hypertension, malnutrition, and cancers. Experimental work shows crude exposure can be hemotoxic. It can also be hepatotoxic. Those figures underpin the assembly’s call for an audit. This audit combines epidemiology, toxicology, and livelihoods assessment. It serves as a foundation for reparations or remediation claims.
Ogoni resumption: why communities fear a rerun of harm. The assembly’s categorical demand to halt any effort to resume oil extraction in Ogoni has been made. This comes as the Federal Government has ordered renewed engagement with Ogoni stakeholders about restarting operations.
Government channels and press reports actively push to reopen acreage. They aim to restore production in areas once devastated by spills and conflict. For many survivors and campaigners in Ogoni, resumption must include independent remediation. It should be fully funded and obtained with free, informed consent. Otherwise, it would be a replay of historical injustice.
The PIA review row The assembly singled out the Petroleum Industry Act for review. That is telling. The PIA was sold as a modernising reform. However, critics say it entrenched weak oversight. They also argue it created conflicts of interest. Furthermore, it failed to protect communities or ensure transparent decommissioning liabilities.
Recent reporting suggests disputes and conflicts of interest have already begun to plague the planned review. These issues fuel fears that the process will be captured by vested interests. The current situation is not driven by independent public interest. The Port Harcourt resolutions frame the PIA review as a turning point. It signifies a choice between reform that truly protects people. Alternatively, it will result in legal tinkering that fortifies impunity.
The assembly’s resolution emphasizes holding the Nigerian state as accountable as oil companies. This approach cuts to the heart of the problem. Governments set the rules, award licences, collect rents and regulate compliance. States fail when they do not enforce environmental standards.
They must also demand clean-up bonds. Furthermore, they should ensure transparent transfers during divestments. Without these actions, corporate pledges amount to empty rhetoric. The assembly seeks equal responsibility in legal, financial, and moral areas. This is to prevent remediation from being avoided through clever corporate restructuring or discreet sales.
Global solidarity and the new activist generation The delegates plainly understand that domestic demands alone will not be enough. By calling for global partnerships, the assembly seeks to internationalise scrutiny of divestments. It aims to enlist transnational human rights mechanisms, environmental NGOs, and diaspora networks. The goal is to leverage the influence of investors and lenders over buyers who would inherit a toxic legacy.
The commitment to build a new generation of activists signals a long game. This includes training, legal empowerment, and cross-border campaigning. These efforts are designed to keep pressure on both companies and state actors.
What this means for accountability and policy The Port Harcourt resolutions create a political test. Will international agencies, creditor nations, and investors demand that any asset sale be conditional? They must guarantee verified clean-up funds and community consent.
The UN expert findings and civil society evidence show that divestment will continue as a transfer of harm. This will occur until those conditions are standard. Similarly, a credible PIA review must insert robust decommissioning obligations. It must create community rights and guarantee independent monitoring. Otherwise, it risks becoming law that legalises ecological harm.
Conclusion The People’s Environmental Assembly in Port Harcourt has placed a mirror before the country and the global oil industry. Its resolutions serve as both a catalogue of grievance and a blueprint for action. They aim to stop the sales that shift liabilities. They audit the last 70 years of damage. They refuse an Ogoni repeat. They fix the PIA and make the Nigerian state answerable.
Achieving these demands will need sustained civic pressure. It will also need strategic litigation, international solidarity, and converting outrage into enforceable legal and financial remedies by reformers. The assembly has staked a claim for ecological justice. The rest of the world should listen.
