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By Paul Williams
Students in Rivers State have staged a walk in the capital, Port Harcourt, to press home the demand for an end to the use of fossil fuel, and for climate justice.
Defying an early morning downpour on Friday June 27, 2025, students of Community Secondary School (CSS) Oroworokwo and their teachers, joined by individuals from the surrounding communities, marched along the busy Aba-Port Harcourt Expressway to urge governments and people around the globe to “take Climate Action Now.”
Coordinator of Quest for Growth and Development Foundation, Smith Nwokocha, whose organization supported the march, as part of the ‘International Week of Action Against Oil Expansion,’ called for an end to oil expansion, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Nwokocha said multinationals are expanding their oil and fossil fuel expansion in areas and regions around the globe. “We are saying that there should be no such thing in DRC.
“We are here doing this in Nigeria today, adding our voice to what is happening in DRC. And this is happening across over 27 countries in the continent. We are all adding our voices together that there should be no further fossil fuel extraction in our soil, in our land.
“Oil should be left in the ground. There are better things to channel our energies to. We are telling multinationals that they can switch to renewable energies, things like solar, geothermal and the like, which are environmentally friendly,” he said.
Nwokocha noted that oil exploration activities, particularly in the Niger Delta, have caused pollution, drained the livelihood of local communities and left women and children dying from sickness and diseases.
“There is displacement. There are different types of cancer. Even in Niger Delta, we have statistics that people die at the age of 40. And this is happening across other African countries.
“In DRC, we are saying that they should stop EACOP projects (a pipeline across the East African region, Tanzania, Uganda and DRC). We are asking Total Energy. They should stop that pipeline activities, and other multinationals as well. Let them begin to focus on renewable energy that is environmentally friendly,” he said.
Commandant, Peace Corps of Nigeria, Rivers Command, Dr Michael Obiora, whose organization partnered with Quest for Growth and the students on the walk, said oil which has been the mainstay of Nigeria and a blessing to Africa, has also become a resource cost to the continent.
“In most oil communities, you see the flaring of gas, you see the leakage of oil and a lot of other things that are going on oil exploration.
“So we are saying there are better ways we can also get energy, which is the renewable energy from the sun, and Africa is so blessed with that. Today we are asking that the issue of renewable energy should be the mainstay in Africa. Africa should begin to embrace renewable energy because we have it in abundance,” he said.
Dr Obiora linked renewable energy to the pursuit of peace in the region, which is the mandate of his organization, adding that, “if we go for renewable energy, we have peace. No land grabbing and the rest of them.”
Students of Community Secondary School (CSS) Oroworokwo, Miss Victory Rogers and Master Joseph Atukomi, both in JSS 3, expressed gratitude to the organisers for the opportunity to join in the march for climate justice and action.
They said the global dependence on fossil fuels have led to climate change and crisis, breakdown of ecosystems, pollution and global health crisis.
“People are developing cancer, carbon dioxide. Many people are dying in our environment today because of this climate crisis, because of this fossil fuel. We need renewable energy, because it is clean, pure and natural,” they said.
