Environmental Degradation And The Right To Life: The Nigerian Legal Question

What does the constitutional right to life mean when the environment in which a person lives becomes dangerous? If the air is polluted, water is contaminated and the conditions necessary for a safe and healthy life are steadily destroyed, can the harm still be treated as merely an environmental problem? This question is particularly important in Nigeria’s oil-producing communities, where environmental degradation can threaten the basic conditions on which life and human dignity depend. It also raises a difficult constitutional question: where does environmental protection end and the right to life begin?

Section 33 of the Constitution

Section 33(1) of the Nigerian Constitution provides that every person has a right to life, subject to the qualifications contained in the Constitution.

The provision is one of Nigeria’s fundamental rights. But it does not expressly mention environmental protection.

Gbemre’s Broad Approach

The Federal High Court addressed this question directly in Gbemre v Shell.

The applicants argued that continuous gas flaring in Iwherekan Community endangered their lives and health.

The Court accepted the argument that the constitutional right to life and dignity inevitably included protection against a clean, poison-free and pollution-free environment.

Why this Reasoning Matters

Life does not exist in a vacuum. Human beings require air, water, food and a habitable environment.

If environmental degradation reaches a level at which those basic conditions are seriously threatened, the argument that environmental harm has nothing to do with the right to life becomes difficult to ignore.

But the Legal Position is Contested

The difficulty is that Gbemre was followed by more restrictive appellate reasoning. In Opara v Shell, the Court of Appeal rejected the attempt to frame environmental pollution from oil and gas activities as a fundamental-rights claim under sections 33 and 34.

COPW and State Responsibility

Centre for Oil Pollution Watch v NNPC provides another important piece of the puzzle. The Supreme Court’s decision recognised the standing of an NGO to pursue environmental litigation and considered environmental protection in connection with section 20, section 33 and Article 24 of the African Charter.

The Alame Decision

The issue was revisited in Alame & Others v Shell Plc in 2025. The English High Court, applying Nigerian law, considered whether section 33 could be engaged by oil pollution and examined the competing authorities.

The Court concluded that COPW had not definitively overturned Opara. It nevertheless considered COPW an important indicator of the Nigerian Supreme Court’s direction of travel on pollution, particularly regarding state responsibilities.

The question Nigeria Must Eventually Answer

The deeper constitutional question is this: Can the right to life be meaningfully protected while ignoring environmental conditions that make life unsafe? A future Supreme Court decision may eventually determine where that line lies.