Consider the recent environmental disaster that ravaged the city of Abidjan, Cote d’lvoire in August of 2006. It killed 12 persons and landed 100,000 in hospitals. Where are Africa’s political leaders who should flex the much-needed muscles of the Bamako Treaty instituted to protect African countries against such environmental crime and pillage? Where is the protection from the global community with respect to the Basel Convention Protocol?

The Basel Convention is intended to protect against the illegal dumping of hazardous wastes in member countries, while the Bamako Convention was enacted by the Organization of Africa Unity (OAU), now African Union (AU), as a protest in its strongest term of the persisting dumping of hazardous and nuclear wastes in the territorial borders of African countries after it refused to ratify the Basel Treaty.

One of such illegal hazardous waste dumping occurred in Port City of Koko, Nigeria in 1987 by an Italian company. That incident sparked an immediate outraged of the supreme political body of Africa, the Organization of African Unity (OAU).

Hazardous wastes by definition (ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity, toxicity) have infectious characteristics – they are defined as solids, liquid or gas wastes that are very destructive to the human environment (water, soil, air, climate, oxygen). The enormity of the catastrophic impact to human lives and the biosphere cannot be over emphasized.

Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their disposal became a serious global concern from a public health perspective. It all began when multinational companies from the developed or industrialized countries started to dump hazardous wastes illegally in some African countries, causing some serious environmental problems that killed innocent children and women, destroyed crops, water bodies and undermined air quality.

Before the imposition of the Basel Convention, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) grew out of Europe’s post-World War II reconstruction efforts. The OECD consists of 24 industrialized countries. Those countries generated almost all of the hazardous wastes. Clandestinely, some OECD member- states were caught dumping toxic wastes in some African countries.

It is estimated that far more than 300 million tones of hazardous wastes are generated annually worldwide, of that amount, 90 percent originates in the industrialized countries. As generation of their hazardous wastes escalated exponentially a result of human population and technological evolution, it became obvious that an urgent need to find a place to dispose such massive and life-threatening hazards were imminent.  This era in the industrialized countries witnessed organized demonstration among citizen groups and environmentalists against the dumping of hazardous wastes in their backyards. The backyard syndrome left Africa as the perfect alternative.

Responding to the Port City of Koko incident in Nigeria, the African Union’s Council of Ministers passed a resolution against the dumping of nuclear and industrial wastes. The AU’s Resolution, in its strongest terms calls the dumping of toxic waste in Africa as “crime against Africa and the Africa people”

The latest of such defiance should serve as a vivid reminder of the fierce challenges and vulnerabilities with which Africa must contend, while the lives and future of the continent’s children and women no longer enjoy the security as they are under constant threat from those who use Africa’s territorial borders as dumping sites for hazardous wastes.

Over 500 tons of petrochemicals that contain a mixture of petroleum distillates; hydrogen sulphide, mercaptans, phenolic compounds and sodium hydroxide dumped around 15 sites in Abidjan reportedly affected the food chain, so vital to human survival, including water bodies and air quality are also threatened. For some, if not all will live with the ever-present environmental holocaust, which may never go away no matter how much de-contamination is implemented in the affected area.

Other potential environmental problems that may emerge from the Abidjan incident could be cross-border environmental problem affecting neighboring countries, such as Liberia. 

United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) estimates the clean-up and de-contamination campaign to cost about $30,000 millions. The UNEP hopes to raise this amount through a trust fund. The program promulgated to deal with such eventuality of this nature under the protocol of the Basel Convention, has less than $275,000 thousand in its coffer. The de-contamination scheme, according to report, needs about $30 millions, which might take quite some months if not years to raise while contamination gradually spread to neighboring countries that share common tributaries such as Liberia via the Cavalla River in Maryland County.

African nations that were reportedly impacted reportedly suffer scores of human deaths, major health problems, destruction of crops, and contamination to water bodies, etc:

 

·        August 2006 Abidjan, Cote d’lvoire, 500 tons of toxic wastes dumped in its border;

·        1992 in Somalia 10 million of toxic wastes dumped in its border;

·        1989 Guinea-Bissau, 15,000 tons of pharmaceutical wastes dumped in its border;

·        1988 Port City of Koko, Nigeria 4000 tons toxic wastes dumped in its border;

·        1988 Kassa Island, Conakry Guinea 15,000 tons of toxic wastes dumped in its border;

·        1987 the Republic of Gabon reportedly agreed to receive radioactive wastes;

·        1988-89 Congo reportedly agreed to garbage 1 million tons of toxic wastes

·        1984-88 Canna, the Republic of Benin garbage millions of toxic wastes in its border, and

·        Many other more we might not account for

 

From all statistical indications, the protocol of the Basel Convention failed to protect the African continent and its people against the hideous crime of illegal hazardous dumping by some industrialized countries.

Equally dismal is the profound silence on implementing the Bamako Convention promulgated by the OAU. Why is Africa silent of this grave issue? Why has it faltered to ensure the needed protection of its borders through member-countries? Regrettably, many African leaders of the African continent do secretly sanction such lethal deals for selfish economic reasons.

At the center of these environmental problems lies the well being of the people from a public health outlook, particularly the children, women and elderly who are vulnerable to the systemic environmental toxins.

What good are these treaties without any capacity to enforce and avert such crime against the people of Africa? The United Nations’ arm responsible to monitor the Basel Convention has been very ineffective to halt such inhumane and gruesome practices in Africa against its inhabitants.

Candidly, there are internal fragmentations of the Bamako Convention among the African Leaders. There are some African countries that continuously ignore the principles of the convention for economic reason at the detriment of its people public health. They are lured into accepting tons of hazardous wastes for little pittance; yet they lack requisite technologies to maintain and contain the environmental impact.

The environmental challenges that confront the Africa Union are quite enormous. Hazardous waste is one of major components, which creates a potentially seismic in Africa. Usually, the wastes engender faming, drought from deforestation, water contamination and air pollution. The issue of global warming must be taken seriously. All of these issues mentioned are tied into political, social and economic growth for the well being of the people of Africa.

The African Union must define or refine a course of action that vigorously addresses these chronic environmental problems. It should be driven by a vision that will protect our natural resources and our people, providing the necessary security to ensure Africa’s sustainable future.

The challenges equally bear on us as sons and daughters of Africa. We have to be the voice of deterrence, action and hope to help our people, and ultimately save and sustain the continent against the forces that devalued our right to a clean environment. 

Morris T. Koffa is Executive Director, Liberia Environmental Watch, Inc www.liberiaenvironmentalwatch.org

koffamkoffa@aol.com

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