By Bisola Adeyemo
The Executive Director of Foundation for Peace Professionals, Mr Abdulrazaq Hamzat, said that more than 50 per cent of Nigeria’s security challenges started as a result of climate change problem.
According to him, herders in the process of moving around in search of food, began to direct their animals into farms, thereby causing crisis with farmers, a crisis that has now escalated into armed conflict in some environment, leading to invasion of many communities.
Hamzat, while delivering a paper titled “Climate Change is a Water Problem” during a webinar hosted by International Human Rights Commission in Karachi, Pakistan to mark this year’s World Environment Day, stated that disruption in global ecosystem has impacted the world in complex ways.
He said: “In the true sense of it if one takes a critical look at the situation in the country, one would realize that more than 50% of Nigeria’s security challenges are largely climate change problem, Daily post reports
“Farmers-Herders clashes and Banditry, which are major security concerns in Nigeria that is pitching the southern part of the country with the North started as a problem of climate change, in which herders finding it difficult to feed and preserve their animals in their usual environment due to disruption in the ecosystem, began to search for conducive environment for sustenance.
“In the process of moving around in search of food, herdsmen begin to direct their aminals into farms, thereby causing crisis with farmers, a crisis that has now escalated into armed conflict in some environment, leading to invasion of many communities.
“Herdsmen that has lost their cattle with no means of livelihood saw the prospect in crime as a means of survival, starting with revenge against their former attackers, then suddenly to banditry, which has now become a major occupation.”