As I took my journey into the creeks of the Niger Delta, crisscrossing various channels en route to one of the popular Ijaw kingdoms in the region, Gbaramatu Kingdom, situated in the Warri South West Local Government Area of Delta state, from what I saw on the way I could not help but recall a scene from the movie: ‘The Lord of the Rings’ where trees came alive to join the human race to fight against an evil force that posed a grave danger to their collective and continued existence.

And currently, with the same fate awaiting the trees of the mangrove swamp, I wish they (trees) would in the same vein come alive to protest the crude nature with which humanity have cruelly subjected them to, by the continued degradation of their natural habitats that are unabatedly bombarded daily with pollutants as a result of crude oil mining activities.

Clearly, the trees are crying for help and pleading to her traducers to rethink their actions. Every day, the population of these trees is dwindling in their numbers as every now and then a tree falls down in premature death due to the suffocation of its roots in the earth and water below and from the air above.

And tragically for these trees, their traducers show them no pity or care less about their welfare. All their traducers are thinking of is how to satisfy the appetite to make more money, a desire that is endless. And so, from a greenish colour to chalk and ash, the trees of the mangrove swamps are growing pale every passing second (not minute) and are dying prematurely unlike the lengthy years of their ancestors who had lived hundreds of years before them.

I could hear their voices of lamentation as they asked: “What sins have we committed in our own time to deserve this sorrowful treatment from those who should protect us? Maybe we are not the ones that have sinned against our creator but humanity who dwell in our midst! Are they not aware that we are medicines to them, created to cure some of their ailments? What happens when we are no more? Besides medicine, have they also forgotten we are here to wage battle against the tempest and to stop the storm from destroying their dwelling places? Have they forgotten we are the source of their heat and fire when they needed to keep warm and prepare their meals, even utilized us for their housing and domestic needs?”

I shook my head at these thoughts and try to focus on the journey. But now and then the sight of the sick mangrove trees keeps appearing before me anywhere I turn, even when I shut my eyes pretending to fall asleep. Unable to control my thoughts I blurted out: “Humanity is sick!”

And just then another scene from the movie ‘Matrix’ played across my mind. I could hear the villain in that movie accusing the human race of being a parasite that are only interested in destroying (never preserving) whatever they come across and like a leech that sucks the blood of its host to death without giving any thought that the death of the host would mean no more blood for them. Do the parasite or leech cares? As long as the host is dead, they migrate to another host to continue their destruction. And this, sadly, accurately describes the nature of the human race!

“Help us to speak!” the trees in the mangrove cried out in a deafening tone. “Help us to tell the human race that they are not destroying us but themselves! How long will they perish in ignorance? Tell them they are only being foolish. That, if it has come to a level when non-living things like us are imbued with wisdom to now teach humanity some sanity, then it means the human race has lost their glory!”

As I reached my destination and joined other passengers to alight from the boat, I could hear murmurs of discontent and some of the passengers pointing into the distance. Following the direction of their fingers, my eyes travelled the distance and I beheld huge thick black smoke escaping into the sky from the burning of an illegal crude oil refining camp supposedly by the military authorities. In the midst of those flames I could hear the souls of a thousand trees crying out in pain as they burn to death.

#penglobaldiscourse