By
Nnimmo Bassey
My
last meeting with Oronto was barely a week before his passing. He had sent me a
text message inviting me over to Abuja to discuss some issues. I had been
planning to visit him, anyhow, and was curtailed by his tight schedule which I
abhorred disrupting. It was a delight to find this open space to see him.
After
spending some time with him, family and friends discussing the excellent step
President Goodluck Jonathan had taken by congratulating the President-elect,
Muhammadu Buhari, for winning the election, we retreated into his bedroom for
more private conversations.
Oronto
truly amazed me as he calmly talked about how Nigeria needed a strong
environmental justice movement and why we must keep doing the best we can. He
then went down memory lane about how we got to know each other, how we became
friends and brothers.
He recalled how he had to have an identity card from my
architectural firm in the difficult early 1990s when being able to identify
yourself in an acceptable manner could mean walking away free or being taken
into the gulag by the jackboots. Not that ID cards kept us from suffering
detentions and humiliations of those heady days.
We
reminisced about how we started the Environmental Rights Action and how he
first served as chief field officer before stepping up into the role of deputy
director of the organisation. Until his passing in the early hours of April 9,
2015, he was a trustee of the organisation as well as a member of its board of
directors.
I should add here that all through his days in ERA, Oronto never
received even one kobo as an allowance for his work. And he did work more than
many others. In fact the organisation started on the principles that we would
all live on the same plane as they people and communities we served; a strong
foundation indeed.
Our
conversation on ERA ended on the note that we must do all we can at all times
to support and strengthen the organisation.
Then
we began to talk about books. Anyone who knows Oronto will agree that he was an
intellectual militant in the most positive and pure manner. Right from our
early years together, we had reached the understanding that the ecological
struggle must be fought with knowledge and from a holistic platform – seeing
that our lives are deeply woven into our environment in a complete and
interactive manner.
From that time onward, we resolved to encourage scholarship
among the ranks of activists and also to encourage writing and documentation. A
few years ago, we talked about how CDLF, his non-profit organisation, would
builds libraries across communities in Nigeria so as to encourage scholarship.
Some months back and also last week, we talked about his plans to build a resource
centre in Lagos in memory of late comrades, Chima Ubani and Bamidele Aturu.
How
the ranks of committed activists are depleting!
One
of the greatest books on the Niger Delta environment is Where Vultures Feast:
Shell, Human Rights, and Oil in the Niger Delta (2003) that he co-authored with
Ike Okonta. It is noteworthy that Okonta is also a member of the board of
directors of ERA. Ike went on to write the highly seminal When Citizens Revolt
– a study of the non-violent mobilisations by MOSOP and the Ogoni people.
Oronto had earlier collaborated with Nick Ashton-Jones, an ecologist and ERA
Board member and Susi Arnott to write the classic The Human Ecosystem of the
Niger Delta – An ERA Handbook (1998).
Oronto
was a man of ideas. He was a strategic thinker whose ideas you could
confidently take the bank at any time. He was one of the main authors of the
Kaiama Declaration of 1998. The launching of the Declaration by the Ijaw Youth
Council including the Operation Climate Change that was pursued through the
ogele (an Ijaw cultural protest dance) was harshly supressed by the Nigerian
military. That repression inspired my poem We Thought It Was Oil but it Was
Blood (1998) that was dedicated to Oronto and the youths of the Niger Delta.
His
frequent counsel was: We must choose our fights. We cannot expend our energies
on everything.
While
his days on this side of eternity were ebbing away he was thinking of how to
set things up into the future. He was a highly charismatic and inspirational
leader. His ideas helped to shape and widen our campaigns and networks.
One
of the last things we discussed together was his request that I find time to
speak with a lady who is writing his biography. I was privileged to do that the
following morning. During that conversation I was conscious not to slip into
speaking about Oronto in the past tense. And we laughed over that. It was not
time for speaking in that manner! I am saddened that now circumstances force me
to speak of him that way.
We
chatted on. Then Oronto brought up the issue of his health. His selflessness
kept this aspect to the end of our private conversation that afternoon.
Intermittently he would pause to apologise for calling me up from Benin City to
Abuja.
My protestations that opportunities to visit with him were a delight to
me did not stop him from repeating it a few more times. As he spoke he took on
a serious mien and for a moment I remembered visiting him in a San Francisco
hospital years ago when he began the heroic fight against cancer. When he
embarked on walking around the hospital floor, as part of his therapy, it took
all my energy to keep up pace with him. He was a strong man. I recall that
while on that hospital bed he kept on working and writing.
Oronto
informed me that on his last visit to the doctors he was told they had done all
they could do. And there was nothing more for them to do. It would be a matter
of weeks they had told him. In his battle with cancer Oronto never evoked or
solicited pity. He was a bold, strong person.
At
this point we agreed that there was a higher Physician we could hand the case
over to, God. When I switched into my role as a clergy and began to assure him
of the promises of God as recorded in the Bible his eyes lit up and a smile
played at the corners of his lips.
As I write this short piece in his honour,
that is the picture of his face that I remember. Oronto’s smiling face is
etched indelibly on my heart. It helps to soothe the ache, somewhat. We held
onto each as I prayed over the situation expressing confidence that the
prognosis of the doctors could always be overturned. But things do not always
go the way we desire or pray.
I
confess that I felt diminished when my parents and parents-in-law passed on to
eternity, but Oronto’s passing hit me in a deep emotional manner that cannot be
captured in words. I was visiting Lagos with my wife and we were in bed
early that morning when a call came through from Akinbode Oluwafemi, another
member of the Board of Directors of ERA. Before I took the call I sensed that
this could not be good news. He managed to pass the information across and said
he was heading to the airport for Abuja.
My
wife hugged me tightly and without saying a word it was clear that our plans
for the day were to be put on hold and I had to head to Abuja myself. I am glad
that Oronto’s wife has remained strong and the children will find solace in the
strength of their mother and the very solid footprints that their father has
left behind.
Men
like Oronto Douglas do not die. They may no longer be visible, but their ideas,
passions and inspiration live on. He lived a truly unforgettable life. He was a
friend, brother and comrade. I cherish that smile from an unbreakable spirit.
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