The Association of Environmental Lawyers of Nigeria (AELN), has taken its awareness campaign to secondary schools in Rivers State, with a firm promise to offer scholarships to students, who successfully gain admission to study Environmental Law and Environmental Management in any of the country’s universities, as a way of motivating them to champion the protection of the environment.
The association, which gave this indication during the awareness campaign at the University of Port Harcourt International Secondary School, Mile 3, Diobu, Port Harcourt on Wednesday, also hinted that it would sponsor essay competitions on the environment in schools in the state.
The campaign which also featured a question and answer session saw the participating students, drawn from SS1 and SS2 classes, enthusiastically answering questions from the lawyers, who had earlier grilled them with thought-provoking tutorials centred on the environment.
Essentially, all the students, who correctly answered the questions posed to them were rewarded with specially customised notbooks, as a mark of appreciation for their efforts.
The National President of the association and Associate Professor of Energy and Environmental Law, Dr Samuel Chisa Dike; Rivers State Chairman of the body, Barrister Promise Iwezor; and the National Public Relations Officer, Barrister (Mrs) Judith Adeniji, took turns to lecture the students on what constitutes the environment and highlighted the need to protect, preserve and keep it clean at all times.
Speaking with The Tide in an interview, the National President, Dr Samuel Dike said the association took the campaign to schools in order to catch them young and to create awareness and actually make the students Green Advocates and ambassadors of environmental protection and cleanliness, as well as inaugurate them as such.
According to him, “the environment is our future and our pride”.
Dike also said that the awareness campaign was equally a way by the body to uplift the society, as government alone cannot do everything, including protecting and cleaning the environment.
He said the association was poised to take the awareness campaign to other schools in the state, and expressed delight that the programme was received with excitement and enthusiasm by the students of the University of Port Harcourt International Secondary School, noting that it was basically “to make them conscious of what we are doing and also make people know that there is need to protect and keep the environment clean.”
On her part, the National Public Relations Officer, Barrister (Mrs) Judith Adeniji hinted that she had taught the students the dangers of oceanic pollution, and stressed the need for young people to be inculcated the habit of not dumping wastes into drainages.
The Rivers State Chairman of the association, Barrister Promise Iwezor explained that the awareness campaign is taken to schools in order to catch them young before they actually get out of hand and control, adding that going by the performance of the students in the school visited, the objective of the programme had been achieved.
Also speaking in an interview, the Principal of University of Port Harcourt International Secondary School, Mrs Ngozi Emechala described the programme as great, saying, “We are now aware of our environment and the students are now aware of how to keep the environment clean and preserve animals like rodents instead of killing them”.
Emechala, who was visibly elated, said she had before now not heard of environmental lawyers but had been so captivated by the programme that she would like one of her children to be an Environmental Lawyer. She said the secret behind the outstanding performance of her students during the programme was the sheer fact that the school has qualified teachers.

By: Donatus Ebi