Since his auspicious appointment as Director General and Chief Executive Officer of the National Council on Climate Change (NCCC), Dr Salisu Dahiru, an environmental resources management guru with over 38 years cognate experience in environmental management and sustainable development, has decisively hit the ground running in order to attain the aims and objectives of the Council.
These objectives include adopting mechanisms for achieving low green house gas emissions,adopting green growth methods and ensuring sustainable economic development for Nigeria as a whole. One of Dr Salisu Dahiru’s major policy initiatives was to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the National Sovereign lnvestment Authority (NSIA) to further boost Nigeria’s climate change agenda.
The MOU seeks the development of a climate change framework to provide guidelines for regulating carbon emissions in Nigeria, implementation of a carbon emissions trading mechanism and the management of a national carbon registry as well as a Climate Change Fund.
By committing resources from its sovereign wealth fund to support climate action and an inclusive green economic growth, the MOU signposts the country’s seriousness about tackling climate change as well as investing in a fast decabonising global community.
An intuitive Dr Salisu Dahiru who holds a B.Sc. in botany, an M.Sc. in cytogenetics & plant breeding, and a PhD in environmental resources management understands that the best approach to tackling the effects of climate change and global warming is by consistent advocacy, holistic enlightenment of rural and urban communities and partnering with private and public institutions including non-governmental organisations, civil society groups, community associations, ministries, departments, industries and manufacturing concerns to spread the gospel of environmental sustainability.
For instance the NCCC helmsman has called for proper implementation of co-operation mechanisms between the Council and private and public sector operators to prioritize carbon market access in line with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change controls.
Such partners include the MDAs, Central Bank of Nigeria, Ministry of Petroleum Resources, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), World Bank and the organised private sector.
One of the major challenges facing the mitigation of climate change is the fact that most of those propelling the campaign adopt elitist slogans and methods in their approach. While many of those that contribute and inherently suffer from climate change effects are largely uneducated rural and urban dwellers who hardly understand the high sounding rhetoric of the anti-climate change elite. In this regard, the grassroots attuned Dr Salisu Dahiru has bridged this gap immensely by reducing the legalese coming from the NCCC, it’s officials, activists, partners and field workers to the level of perception of the man on the street and on the farms.
Village folk that burn firewood for cooking get the clear message that the incessant destruction of the forests leads to massive erosion, flooding, global warming and increased health risks posed by heat waves. The introduction of the highly effective Atmosfair Save 80 Clean Cookstoves to numerous households in the country by the NCCC has assisted in addressing climate change by reducing the usage of firewood by over 80 percent.
This clean Cookstoves campaign is the first of it’s type in the country and highlights the practical and proactive approach adopted by Dr Salisu Dahiru towards tackling the climate change debacle facing the country and by extension the world.
Definitely his mission is a tough haul given how far the nation needs to go in order to reverse decades, even generations of uncontrolled damage and destruction of the environment and the largely ambivalent attitude of many Nigerians to issues concerning climate change and global warming. Indeed the high level of poverty and illiteracy existing in many parts of the country makes the issue of global warming and climate change seem like an exercise in academics to most people rather than a portent threat to their existence.
However a vastly experienced, academically qualified and professionally equipped Dr Salisu Dahiru has decisively seized the bull by the horns and is making steady and visible progress in fulfilling the mandate of the NCCC, tackling environmental degradation and reversing the tide of climate change and global warming.
Before his appointment as Director General of the NCCC, Dr Salisu Dahiru was the national project coordinator for the Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project (NEWMAP) and the Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscape (ACReSAL) project, both financed by the World Bank.
He was also Nigeria’s lead negotiator for the Agriculture, Forest, and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sector under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Armed with these positively intimidating public service credentials, an outstanding working experience and superb networking skills, a technically competent Dr Salisu Dahiru has hit the ground running and there is no going back until ultimate victory against the variegated forces driving environmental devastation, excessive flooding, incessant heat waves, perennial desertification drying wetlands rising sea levels and untold disruptive climate change occurrences is achieved.
Dr Salisu Dahiru has the historic mandate and the decisive vision to see his altruistic mission through to it’s ultimate and logical conclusion. To God be the glory.
