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Niger Delta: Proposed Oil Mining in Kavango, Okavango Regions

The Niger Delta region of Nigeria is known for massive environmental pollution as a result of oil mining activities by multinational oil companies among others that you cannot wish another region of the world except you hate them. In Kavango region, Namibia and Okavango region, Botswana, a Canadian company called “ReconAfrica” is preparing to commence oil mining activities in those regions. Activists, nongovernmental organizations and community people from these regions and countries have been reaching out to Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre (YEAC) Nigeria among other activists and organizations in Nigeria and around the world to seek supports and experience-sharing about oil-mining activities and the situation in the Niger Delta to enable them determined and decide through a sought free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) whether that is what they would want repeated in their countries and regions. Advocacy Centre had since early 2021 being working with activists and networks of over 120 organizations from both countries on these issues. In Bostwana, YEAC has worked on a video documentary from the Niger Delta about the oil mining situation and in Namibia; Advocacy Centre has been making contributions to advocacy efforts and publications with one of our most recent contribution to publications titled: “WHY WE SHOULD LEARN FROM HISTORY AND SAY NO” (downloadable here Niger-Delta-Namibia). It is obvious that if the elders and indigenous peoples of the Niger Delta have had peoples and regions to ask questions from them like theses in days before crude oil mining, they may not have accepted it as the environmental pollution situation on ground today is regrettable to the region. With the experiences so far shared, what they have read in the news over the years and the fact that the world is moving away from hydrocarbon to clean and renewable energy, the people of Kavango and Okavango regions of Botswana and Namibia are saying “NO” to oil mining by ReconAfrica, considering the Niger Delta experience among others. Join the advocacy. Say “NO” to oil mining in the Okavango and Kavango regions and anywhere else in the world.

(A photograph of Pollution in Ogoni, Niger Delta region of Nigeria)

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