By Victor Anayochukwu
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INTRODUCTION:
Nigerian public institutions have a knack for shortsighted environmental plans and policies, often prioritizing immediate political gains over long-term environmental stewardship. Where such policies exist, they serve largely decorative purposes. The lethargy in implementation and enforcement screams palpably above all. Even when equipped with the foresight and courage to shape the nation’s ecological future, many policymakers shy away from investing in environmental initiatives that offer them little in the way of political mileage. It needs to be emphasized that environmental issues are not peripheral; they carry deep-rooted consequences that span both immediate realities and generational legacies.
The Western world may not always be a perfect model for solving Africa’s problems, but in terms of cultural consciousness and regard for the habitats of animals and plants, the West stands tall as a worthy example of progress. While advocating autochthonous solutions to the myriad of Africa’s problems, we must also learn from successful civilizations. Plants and animals are not mere aesthetics, they carry far-reaching economic, biodiversity, cultural, and historical relevance, and must be given serious attention by governments.
Unlike the United States, where the federal government is a repository of vast reserves across the country, Nigeria operates a unique land tenure system that places land significantly under the care and control of the States, except for large water bodies, airspace and subsurface mineral extractions. Our approach to resolving this rarely discussed aspect of our humanity involves a proportionate apportionment of blame to both federal and subnational governments, with a view to provoking action and ingraining environmental considerations into their daily policies and programs as a lifestyle of necessity.
MODELS FOR HEALTHY AND SUSTAINABLE PRESERVATION OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS IN NIGERIA
I first developed an unquenchable thirst to write on this topic during one of my Natural Resource classes, whilst researching my defense for a paper topic assigned by an erudite professor in the historic State of Pennsylvania. I came across a statute enacted on August 25, 1916. It is the National Park Service Organic Act of 1916. Before its enactment, environmental laws were fragmented; but this Act created a centralized policy and oversight framework for all national parks in the United States. Most crucial for this paper is the Purpose Clause of the Act, which reads:
“To conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”
This clause is symbolic of the deep thinking encapsulated in most derivative legislations likes the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, Endangered Special Act of 1973, Wilderness Act of 1964 etc. These are by no means artificial and not subject to directionless change of government. They embody some of the true essence of what makes America great. In fact, the land mass covered by the entire United States National Park, estimated at 344,000 square kilometers, will comfortably swallow up the entire 17 states in Southern Nigeria, which comprise an area of 200,200 square kilometers – with over 140,000 square kilometers to spare. It is bigger than each of Italy, the United Kingdom, and South Korea.
Needless to say, that environmental preservation is not a matter of seasonal campaigns. In the United States, it seems to be a cultural instinct, codified in law and etched into the national psyche. From Yellowstone Park bestriding the states of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, down to Yosemite Park in the economic nerve of California, millions of acres are shielded from human incursion, not by sentiment, but by statute. Killing endangered animals, felling trees indiscriminately, or polluting waterbodies is not just frowned upon, it is prosecuted.
The Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and Marine Mammal Protection Act etc. form some of the legal barricade against ecological recklessness. National parks are not ornamental; they are living laboratories, fiercely protected and scientifically managed. Even birds in migration are tracked, studied, and shielded. Waterbodies are monitored with almost precision, and marine ecosystems are restored with urgency. Environmental education is ingrained in childhood, and conservation is not a luxury, it is a patriotic duty.
Nigeria, by contrast, treats nature as expendable. Forests are razed for profit. Rivers are poisoned without consequence. Wildlife is hunted to extinction while governments issue press releases. It is no longer fanciful to blame this difference solely on economic disparity; our people must adopt good and healthy environmental practices to the best of our individual abilities.
Africa must align with beneficial environmental practices at the basic levels. We must legislate with teeth, not platitudes. Designate ecological zones as sacred and enforce their sanctity. Empower communities to steward their forests and rivers. Teach children that a tree is not just wood, it is oxygen, medicine, and memory. Build institutions that treat biodiversity as infrastructure, not scenery.
Preservation is not Western. It is wisdom. And Nigeria must retrace its steps now!
THE DANGER OF BIODIVERSITY EXTINCTION
The urgent need to hurriedly put pen to paper by lending my voice to the quest for environmental preservation was actuated by social media trends showcasing nonchalant destruction of wildlife and plants by most local communities without consequences.
In July 2025, elephants, driven from their habitat as a result of deforestation, were subjected to violence by locals in Itasin, Ogun State.
On March 5, 2025, the Obololi River in Bayelsa turned toxic after a pipeline leak from Shell’s infrastructure. Thousands of fish floated lifelessly to the surface, their gills scorched by crude oil.
Throughout 2023 and 2024, the shores of Bonny and Warri Rivers bore witness to daily scenes of ecological grief. Dead fish, crabs, and mollusks washed ashore, victims of industrial discharge and untreated effluents.
In March 2023, oil spills from illegal bunkering blackened the creeks of Bayelsa and Rivers State, suffocating mangroves and killing off aquatic life.
Between 2022 and 2023, elephants in Cross River and Bauchi wandered into farms, their habitats destroyed by logging.
In March 2022, the African Sea Turtle Congress convened in Cotonou, Benin, highlighting the pitiable plight of marine life in Africa.
From 2020 to 2022, Nigeria’s forests vanished at an alarming rate. Drone footage from Cross River and Taraba showed illegal logging deep within protected reserves.
It must be reiterated that extinction is not a distant apocalypse. It is a quiet erosion happening in real time. Some Nigeria’s forests no longer echo with the calls of rare birds. Government and individuals erect road and buildings with reckless abandon and without regards to its environmental impacts. Rivers once teeming with manatees and fish now carry plastic, oil, and silence. The disappearance of species is not just biological, it is cultural, economic, and spiritual. When biodiversity dies, memory dies with it.
Across the country, over a thousand plants and animal species teeter on the brink. The Cross River gorilla, the Niger Delta red colobus, the African manatee, each a living testament to Nigeria’s ecological wealth, now reduced to footnotes in conservation reports. Medicinal plants vanish before their secrets are known. Pollinators disappear, and with them, the promise of harvests.
The consequences are brutal. Soil loses fertility. Rivers lose resilience. Ecosystems collapse. Floods become more frequent, droughts more severe. The Mokwa and Alau Dam disasters (May 2025 and 2023 respectively) were not just natural, they were ecological warnings ignored. Biodiversity is not decoration; it is nature’s gift and infrastructure to humanity.
We must re-echo our gong of warning to the effect that extinction is irreversible. It is final. And every species lost is a betrayal of the unborn. If Nigeria continues on this path, it will not just lose animals and plants, it will lose its ecological sovereignty, its cultural identity, and its future.
STATES AND FEDERAL WINDOW DRESSINGS AND ENVIRONMENTAL RECKLESSNESS
Nigeria’s environmental governance is a theatre of pretense, grand declarations, hollow policies, and a parade of photo ops that mask a deep-rooted indifference. Ministries, agencies and parastatals at state and federal levels host summits, plant ceremonial trees, and issue glossy reports while forests burn, rivers choke, and wildlife vanishes.
The Land Use Act grants state governors sweeping control over land, yet accountability is absent. There is no good replica of the National Park Service (NPS) whether at the National or regional cadre. The few national parks like Yankari and Kainji Lake are poorly managed and regulated. Some forest reserves are sold off for luxury estates. Wetlands are dredged for shopping malls. A common scene in Lagos State. Illegal logging thrives under political protection. Federal agencies, armed with statutory authority over mineral and water resources, remain spectators paralyzed by bureaucracy or complicit in silence.
Plastic waste floods cities. Drainage systems collapse under the weight of neglect. Construction continues on floodplains, defying logic and law. Environmental budgets are slashed, audits ignored, and enforcement agencies underfunded. There are no environmental courts. No ecological tribunals. Just noise.
For instance, in early 2024, the Tinubu administration abruptly launched the Lagos –Calabar Coastal Highway project, spanning over 700 kilometers, without first conducting or publishing a proper Environmental Impact Assessment. This is regardless of the obvious fact that the decision threatens critical biodiversity zones along the Lekki Peninsula, Oniru waterfront, and Niger Delta, endangering marine life, fragile ecosystems, and displacing coastal communities.
This recklessness is not accidental, it is systemic. It reflects a governance culture that treats nature as expendable and future generations as irrelevant. The state is not just failing; it is actively eroding the ecological foundations of the nation. There is an urgent need for State governments to reserve more areas as public parks and exempt them from indiscriminate human activities.
Until Nigeria replaces performance with principle, and tokenism with teeth, the environment will remain a casualty of political theatre. And the cost will be paid in floods, famine, and forgotten species.
CONCLUSION
Nigeria stands at a precipice. The destruction of its flora and fauna is not just environmental, it is existential. Each tree felled, each species lost, each river poisoned is a line erased from the manuscript of our national memory. This is not development. It is decay, dressed in asphalt and concrete.
We owe the future more than apologies. We owe them forests that breathe, rivers that nourish, and skies that still carry the wings of birds. Preservation must become policy, culture, and creed. Not tomorrow. Now!
Let the laws speak with force. Let communities rise as custodians. Let schools teach reverence for nature. Let governance shed its costume and wear conviction.
Because if we fail, it will not be the animals that go extinct; it will be our integrity, our identity, and our place in history as Africans.
Victor Anayochukwu, LL.B(Nig.),LL.M(Penn State)
Expert in Arbitration, Mediation & Negotiation / Energy & Environmental Law
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