By Femi Akinola
The Northeast quadroon of Nigeria popularly called Hadejia Jama’are River Basin, Damaturu, Borno state, has been ravaged by impacts of climate change.
This was disclosed during a telephone chat with Engr. Mailadi Yusuf, the Director of Weather Forecast at NiMET.
He described the Hadejia Jama ‘are River Basin as one of the hydrologicl basins in the country, noting that it was the only one among the River Basins in the country that does not dischrged into the Atlantic Ocean.
According to Mailadi, the Hadejia Jama ‘are River Basin drains into the Lake Chad directly saying, ”Overtime, it is the basin that has been most ravaged by climate change as faras we know in Nigeria.”
He said that in addition to the Basin’s lost of moisture, lost of human activities and desert encroachment from the far north, the Basin has lost most of its livelihoods.
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He added that the drying up of most of the rivers that feed the lake, the current situation of many of these rivers, siltation basically caused by human activities through farming has contributed to their loosing their capacities to deliver to float to where they supposed to reach.
”Whenever you now till the ground in that part of the country, you’ll be losing it, and when rain comes, it will wash the soil and it goes to the lowest part of the bsin which is at the River Chad. So, most of the rivers has lost their caarrying capacities and they are not able to float to where they supposed to reach. As a result of that, most of the water they now carry just dispatch a part and causes a lot of flooding with the urban areas,” he said.
Explaining further on the impact of climate change in Damaturu area of Borno state, Mailadi said: ” We are the most hit of climate change in Nigeria through no cause of ours. That basin, I can assure you, in the last 100 years, it has not contributed to the emmissions that we are talking about that has caused climate change, even by 1mg of gases.
”So, it is a basin that is innocent , a basin that does not partake in activities that will increase global emmission but it is one of the most or the most ravaged by climate change.
Mailadi noted that in the past, Hadejia Jama’are River Basin was contributing like 60% of fish ctch in Nigeria. However, he said today, ” Not up to 6% of the fish catch from that region and the fact is, the catch is even declining; who knows by the next 20 years, , the there will be no fish at all in the basin.
”And who knows also because in addition to the fish the basin also contribute like 35% or used to contribute like 35% of the cattle in the country. Today, not up to 5% of the cattle of the country comes from that place. All the cattles have migrated towards the North Central and Souther part of the country.
