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Paper short abstract

This paper adopts a descriptive method to review how the people of Niger Delta region have engaged in collective struggles against environmental pollution due to the activities of oil exploration and exploitation in their ancestral lands. The pains and gains of these efforts were analysed.

Paper long abstract

With the growing recognition that climate change is an issue of social, environmental, racial, intergenerational, and other forms of justice, this paper adopts a descriptive method to review how the people of Niger Delta region in Nigeria have engaged in collective struggles against environmental pollution due to the activities of oil exploration and exploitation in their ancestral lands; which have not only brought about climate change induced crisis, but environmental hazards and degradation, the agitations in the past decades have compelled international, national and sub-national agencies to pay an attention and also carry out some actions, the paper profiles the agitations which was both peaceful, and, unfortunately violent in some instances among a few indigenous youths, the paper examines how relevant authorities’ interventions brought relief and hope in through compensations and efforts aimed at cleaning up the environment and also ensuring sustainability. The paper reviews this action in the light of Nancy Fraser's tripartite theory of justice anchored on redistribution, representation and reconciliation and calls for its extension to other local communities with similar challenges (but with low voices). The paper argues that while adaptation and resilience strategies are essential for managing immediate climate risks and environmental degradation, they often operate within the same economic, political, and social structures that produced vulnerability in the first place. However, justice-centered approach as articulated in this paper instead calls for reviewing these structures by addressing historical inequalities, redistributing power and resources, and reshaping development pathways to align with ecological limits.