By ‘Seyifunmi Adebote
Unlike Robert Harmon’s 1993 Thriller, Nowhere To Run, where Van Damme brought all his fury to the screen; the documentary, Nowhere To Run brings to us the reality of our fast depleting environment and leaves us with a sense of urgency to act.
The 45 minutes long documentary profiles how anthropologic actions have contributed to various environmental hazards across Nigeria in recent time, with distinctive impacts in the south, west, north and east regions.
Nowhere To Run addresses a wide range of environmental issues. From breaking down the most talked about (yet not so understood) climate change, to providing well-researched, authentic (though scary) statistics about Nigeria’s high declining forest cover caused by the unchecked massive rate of deforestation.
How climate change is closely linked to the now rampant herdsman vs farmers clashes, youths militancy, and communal frictions threatening national security. Issues like desert encroachment, rising sea tides, inconsistent temperature, unpredictable rainfall patterns, oil spillage, gas flaring, flood, destruction of mangrove, drying up of water bodies like the Lake Chad, reduced food production, and drought among others. All in just one well thought documentary.
Dissuading as one may consider the huge destruction caused by our actions – intentional and unintentional and the fact that there is Nowhere To Run; it is relieving that the documentary reassures us ‘it is not too late’, proffering solutions.
The narration by Ken Saro-Wiwa Jnr., the perfectly merged interviews of the resource persons, the rich visuals and the distinct audio quality all sums up to make a hearty applause for the Executive Producer, Jacqueline Farris and the entire team that put together the documentary Nowhere To Run.
One would expect that with increased awareness of these climatic and environmental crises; organizations, multinationals, financial institutions and religious groups will act environmental-friendly, thereby, leveraging their wide reach of audience to spread the message that unless we act right and quickly, one day, there might be Nowhere To Run – for all of us.
‘Seyifunmi Adebote is an Environmentalist, Editor/Writer, Media Personnel.
