Desertification: Northern govs urge presidency to redeem N10bn pledge

The Northern States Governors Forum said it would prevail on the federal government to release the N10 billion it promised the committee it set up to fight desertification in 11 states of the country.

The decision of the governors to step into the matter followed the release of only N300 million out of the N10 billion pledge almost one year after the promise was made.

Chairman of the Northern States Governors forum and Governor of Niger state, Dr Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, stated this in Minna when he received the chairman and members of the Nigeria Frontier Action Initiative on the Environment who paid him a courtesy call.

Aliyu said the delay in the release of the money to the committee had made it necessary for the governors in the region to push for the issue of desertification plaguing 11 states in the North to be amongst the topic for discussion during the centenary celebrations.
“The issue of desertification has gone beyond partisan, all hands must be on the deck to solve this problem once and for all,” he said.

The governor urged his colleagues to mount a vigorous campaign on the issue of desertification “so that the people in and outside affected areas will be aware of the problem and what government is doing arrest it.”

Aliyu also said the issue of almaljiri had become a threat to the peace and unity of the region, adding that “some Nigerians are even now being transported outside the country to serve as slaves in the name of almajiri.”

Earlier, the Chairman of the committee, Alhaji Mukhtar Lugga, said the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) report had said that 53 million people in the North were poor which also placed 10 states in the region as the poorest in the country.
He said that 34.5 per cent of the land mass in the ‘frontline states’ had been lost to desertification resulting in migration of people from the rural areas to the urban centres.