This policy brief presents an urgent advocacy roadmap for accelerating environmental remediation and achieving justice in Nigeria’s oil-polluted Niger Delta, particularly Ogoniland. It highlights the decades-long ecological damage, institutional shortcomings, and human rights violations resulting from reckless hydrocarbon extraction. With irrefutable scientific and community-based evidence, the brief calls on the Nigerian government to prioritize cleanup, justice, and environmental governance over economic expediency.

Despite over six decades of oil extraction in the Niger Delta, the region remains ravaged by contamination, poverty, and neglect. This brief traces the history of environmental degradation, from oil spills and gas flaring to ecocide in Ogoniland, alongside failed institutional responses. It provides context on the shortcomings of the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP), emphasizes the international concern over its performance, and critiques attempts to resume oil extraction amid unresolved environmental and social injustices.