The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, has urged the Federal Government to channel more ecological funds towards dealing with life-threatening environmental issues.
Akpabio said this while receiving in audience a delegation from the Ecological Project Office led by the Permanent Secretary Mallam Shehu Ibrahim, who paid a courtesy visit on the Senate leadership.
The Senate President was responding to a submission by the permanent secretary.
The Perm Sec had complained that the monthly N3 billion allocated to his agency was grossly inadequate to tackle the requests it receives daily.
Ibrahim had in his submission said the agency was currently in possession of over 5,000 requests from disaster-ravaged communities across the country for urgent attention.
In response, Akpabio urged the agency to prioritise its interventions. He cited the case of the ocean surge that is currently ravaging five states in southern Nigeria and the massive desert encroachment in the Lake Chad basin.
Akpabio promised that the Senate would carry out necessary legislative actions to assist the ecological office in performing well.
The Senate President said, “The method of intervening and selection of projects must be such that they will put urgency outside the normal data they are working with.
“The Ecological Office should attend to the most urgent situations that are likely to affect the lives of the people before it goes to the ones that may not affect lives. Those that are life-threatening should be selected first.”
The Senate President cited the case of Goretti Girls Secondary School in Ikot Ekpene which he said some school blocks had caved in due to erosion. He also encouraged the office to learn to preempt some of the natural disasters.
Akpabio charged the agency to embark on advocacy that would encourage Nigerians to plant at least one tree per year.
He said, “Every child should be encouraged to plant at least one tree in a year. In the areas that are worst hit by desert encroachment, people should be encouraged to plant one tree per month.
“Considering Nigeria’s population, doing that would help us to reclaim a lot of land to tackle the looming disaster.
“The result of this is migration with the people hitherto earning their living from Lake Chad now had to migrate towards the South.
“The lake had shrunk to a point where we are not sure whether we have up to 15 square kilometres of water and it is currently affecting about five countries.”
“The same climate change had affected the Lake Chad basin which used to have 125 square kilometres of water about 10 years ago, is now less than 10p per cent of its original size.
“The result of this is migration with the people hitherto earning their living from Lake Chad now had to migrate towards the South.
“The lake had shrunk to a point where we are not sure whether we have up to 15 square kilometres of water and it is currently affecting about five countries.”
The Senate President equally said the situation was a major problem that is currently aggravating the security challenges in Nigeria.
According to him, “Herdsmen who were used to taking their cattle to the Lake Chad basin for grazing and water now had to travel towards the South.
“In the course of that, they pass through farmlands and the farmers would resist the destruction of their crops.
“The development forced the herders to become armed to protect their cows from being attacked.
“So, your suggestion that you may require international support and sponsorship and maybe aid from international organisations resonates with my feelings and that is why very recently, I was elected into the executive committee of the inter-parliamentary union.
“I will let them know that Nigeria is a place where they should intervene. Whenever the Dam in Cameroon is opened, it happens on an annual basis, the volume of water that comes normally wipes out a lot of islands including most of the uplands in Bayelsa, and those houses will wash away.
“It goes all the way to Ondo down to Akwa Ibom, most of the villages do not exist during that period of the rainy season and when those dams are being on through renovation or yearly maintenance.
“Most people have to leave their villages for six months then the other six months they look for a place to hide.
“In Bayelsa, you will be surprised that without war, we have internally displaced persons as a result of climate change. Whatever we can do we will do to assist you to do more,” he said.
