The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, has asked the Federal Government to channel the ecological fund towards tackling environmental issues that are life-threatening.
Akpabio advised on Thursday when the Permanent Secretary of the Ecological Project Office, Malam Ibrahim Shehu Ibrahim, led officials of his agency on an interactive session with the Senate leadership.
Akpabio was reacting to the submission of the permanent secretary, who said the monthly N3 billion allocation to his agency is grossly inadequate to tackle the requests it gets daily.
Ibrahim had told the Senate leadership that the agency was currently in possession of over 5,000 requests from disaster-ravaged communities across the country for urgent attention.
Akpabio, in his response, 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 of the Lake Chad basin.
Akpabio promised that the Senate would carry out necessary legislative actions to assist the ecological office in performing well.
He 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.”
Akpabio also encouraged the office to learn to preempt natural disasters.
He specifically called on the agency to embark on advocacy that would encourage Nigerians to plant at least one tree per year.
He said the current desert encroachment in the northern part of the country showed that the agency was not conscious of the magnitude of the devastation.
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 same climate change affected the Lake Chad basin, which used to have 125 square kilometres of water about 10 years ago and is now less per cent of its original size.
“The result of this is migration, with the people hitherto earning their living from Lake Chad now having to migrate towards the south. The lake has 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 said the situation was a major problem that is currently aggravating the security challenges in Nigeria.
He said: “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.”
Akpabio added: “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 have found that within that organisation itself, there is a budget for intervening in countries, through parliament, in ecological matters and climate change, which is about 30 billion dollars.
“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 amount of water that comes normally wipes out a lot of land, including most of the uplands in Bayelsa, and houses are washed away.
“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 going through yearly maintenance. Most people have to leave their villages for six months, and 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 in doing more.”
Ecological Project Office must prioritise life-threatening disasters – Akpabio