Omiete Blessing
Stakeholders at a one-day meeting on Renewable Energy, organised by the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), in Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital, have called for a review of the energy transition plan in Nigeria, to ensure communities inclusion and participation.
The stakeholders drawn from the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Agriculture, Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and civil society organizations (CSOs) expressed their concern on communities exclusion in the transition plan.
Noting the need for Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), of communities where wind farms and other renewable energy projects will be cited so as to avoid a repeat of the Niger Delta devastation, the stakeholders emphasised the need for laws and policies that protect communities rights, adequate environmental impact assessment (EIA) and as well, Social Impact Assessment, (SIA) before citing renewal energy projects in communities.
In his presentation, the Executive Director of HOMEF, Dr Nnimmo Bassey, said there will be alot of stranded assets in the Niger Delta as oil companies divest and exit the region.
Bassey called for just energy transition that not only restores the livelihoods of the people of the Niger Delta but improve those of host communities for the renewable energy projects.
Considering the situation of the region which communities were neither consulted or allowed to participate before their lands were taken for oil exploitation, Bassey regretted that the communities were being left to bear the brunt while the companies divest and move away, leaving their pollution behind.
He posited that Nigeria has huge potentials in solar and wind energy if well harnessed and called on the federal government to light up local communities, especially those in the coastal areas with renewable energy source.
He added that the interest of the people must be at the forefront, which is why it is Just Transition, stressing that whether the oil well is old or not, except it is decommissioned and the area cleaned up, the problem remains.
“The issue about energy in Nigeria is a long protracted one. We produce a lot of resources for energy, for example crude oil and gas but people don’t have electricity and we do know that even though we produce more energy today we cannot transmit because the transmission system cannot carry much more power of what is being produced right now.
“The first step to take is for the country, especially for the government to review the energy transition plan or to draw up a clear energy transition plan knowing that we have to move to cleaner resources and to invest in this, have conversations with communities because it won’t be enough to just transit from dirty sources to clean sources and the communities still have nothing to show for it.
“So communities must be at the centre of the discussion about the change of energy source. Because the land is going to come from them, the sea if it is offshore wind or solar, it is still going to come from the communities, so it is going to depend on these natural spaces”, Bassey said.
Also in his presentation, a lecturer at the University of Port Harcourt, (UNIPORT), Prof Fidelis Allen, highlighted the need to employ the newly enacted Electricity Act while considering new energy sources.
Allen, who lectures in the department of Political Science, said the new Act provides states and local governments the opportunity to solve their energy problem and called for domestication of the law by the various states assemblies in respect of the peculiarities of each state.