Nigeria holds general elections: New President will lead Climate Change Campaign

… stop gas flaring
…implement climate change policies
…end open defecation

By Yemi Olakitan, Nneka Nwogwugwu and Fatima Saka

As the country gets set to elect a new President on Saturday, Nigerians in the environment space have tabled their demands on what the incoming leader must do to make the land saver environmentally.

Environmentalists, climate change activists and other Nigerians who spoke with NatureNews on Thursday expressed deep concern on what the incoming administration should do differently to move the country forward in its fight against environmental degradation, improvement, climate change and global warming.

This is as they asked the incoming President to ensure an end to gas flaring, the implementation of various policies, pacts and MOUs on climate change and the environment and stop open defecation.

The deputy governor of Kano State who also doubles as the Commissioner of Agriculture, Dr Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna, described climate change as a global problem which any serious leader must attack squarely.

Gawuna said, “The Climate Change is a very important issue as it has become a global problem. I believe that the next President of Nigeria will be one who will be able to develop a policy framework to tackle the problem head on.

“Climate change has caused many catastrophes in Nigeria particularly the problem of flooding, many lives have been lost. It is expected that the incoming President of Nigeria would put in place adequate infrastructure to stem the tide of perennial flooding in Nigeria. ‘’

Speaking further, Dr Gawuna said, ‘the Federal Government has set up the Climate Change Commission, there should professional environmentalists and experts on the board of that commission if it will bring about the desired results.

‘‘Furthermore, there are many fund on Climate Change that is available at the World Bank, Nigeria needs to do more to access such funding from the World Bank.’’

Dr. Gawuna also spoke on the lingering problem of gas flaring in Nigeria, saying Qatar has abundant gas like Nigeria which has become a major source of their revenue.

“The next President must put an end to gas flaring in Nigeria and commercialize that resources.’’

“Let us not forget the problem of environmental degradation in the Niger Delta. The incoming President of Nigeria must solve this peculiar problem which has defied all solutions for decades.”

Communications Officer for Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, Nsemeke Fabian Asanga, said, “My expectations from the next leadership in Nigeria will be total commitment and implementation of policies in the environment sector.

“We have loads of policies that are targeted towards environment and climate change, but most of this policies needs to be reviewed and action towards implementing.

“Climate change is on its verge and every year local communities are impacted by climate change. For example, flooding, food drought and loss of livelihoods.

“Nigeria as a government has made several pledges towards the mitigation and adaptation of climate change effects. The next President needs to ensure speedy and the full implementation of the Climate Change Act, PIA, an end to gas flaring and other environmental hazards committed by these multinationals.

“The next government should ACT on its commitment to a net Zero emissions and on the National Determined Contribution (NDC).”

Also, Nnimmo Bassey of Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) also charged the incoming president on biodiversity conservation.

He said, “We are experiencing a loss of biodiversity due to the introduction of toxic genetically modified organisms into the environment. Every region is facing its own peculiar ecological problems and this could be a unifying factor in a nation faced with many divisive factors.”

NatureNews.Africa recalls that HOMEF and Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPA), and We the People (WtP) had organised a presidential town hall where presidential candidates explained ways they could improve on the environment.

At the meeting, he had stated that the focus of political leaders on the environment was nothing to write home about.

“The indicators that they care at all about the environment are often only when they move to destroy undeserved and largely autonomous communities termed slums; and sometimes a cosmetic sanitation exercise. Thus, we express hope that the 2023 presidential candidates would act differently if they emerge as new presidents”.

Also, Mr Ayo Akusuk Inkus, a resident of Plateau State, said the next president of Nigeria should take insecurity issues as paramount, giving an instance of banditry, kidnapping and others as a challenge the country is facing.

He lamented that people were not in a good condition, adding that even the government was finding it difficult to lead.

“Because the truth is that when the people are happy, the government will definitely be happy but in a situation where they are not, there is no way the country can move smoothly,” he added.

A stakeholder in the environment sector, Dr. Gowon Dauda, in his expectations from the next president said he should be mindful of the environment.

Dauda said if the environment went down, everybody would go down with it adding that the environment includes “water and air”.

He said, “These are the two major things of life! Only God controls the air, and if we pollute the air, the consequence is death.
He added that one thing humans knew how to do was to pollute the air.

“Only few know the importance of planting trees to make sure that they act as purifiers for the chemical waste that is dumped by a man that is difficult to purify.

“Another means of livelihood is the water, without water in a few weeks there will be no lives.

“So there is a need to have clean and good water and again most diseases are from water related issues.

“Those are the environment; really nobody is in charge of those essentials. We have to be mindful of investing on how to keep this water good by creating more dams for water treatment.

“The expectation from the new president-elect is to know the source of livelihood and he must be concerned about it. He should also make sure the people do not pollute it,” he stated.

President Muhammadu Buhari had said in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia while speaking at the 2nd Heads of State and Government of the Sahel Region Climate Commission (SRCC) during the 36th AU Summit that Nigeria was grappling with the adverse effects of climate change.

According to a statement by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, President Buhari also warned that climate change was an increasing threat to Africa, with Nigeria no least affected, stressing that its adverse impact was the underlying cause of many human population stressors and conflicts with the potential of causing regional instability.

‘‘It has now been recognized as a threat to human survival with different degrees of challenges based on the regions,” he said.

President Buhari added that the Sahel region, like several other regions of the world, was subject to high climatic variability characterized, among other things, by changes in rainfall patterns, desertification, extreme temperatures, recurrent droughts with perceptible effects on agricultural land, pastures, water resources, food security and the economy in general.

According to him, this situation weakens both the living conditions of the populations and the ecosystems and contributes to growing insecurity in the area.

‘‘Nigeria is grappling with a wide-range of adverse impacts of climate change.

‘‘Like other countries in Africa within the Sahel Region, the country has over the past few decades been plagued by a lot of climatic irregularities with serious concerns on the society, due to its spontaneous nature and likely overwhelming effects on national development with implications for food security due to changes in rainfall pattern, desertification and obstruction to the natural ecosystems,’’ he said.

The President also expressed concern that the availability and access to funds for implementation of climate change activities, especially adaptation, remain major problems for the African region.