The growing environmental challenges and severe weather conditions in the country associated with climate change had drawn the attention of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Abuja (UniAbuja).
Speaking at the International Conference on Social Responsibility, Governance, Environmental Challenges and the Prospects of Sustainable Development in Nigeria, Director-General of the Nigeria Meteorological Agency (NIMET), Professor Sani Mashi, said that federal, state and local governments should introduce drastic measures to regulate the felling of trees by villagers for cooking.
He said that the rate of desertification had become very alarming, declaring that it deserved radical policies to stem further deterioration of climate change impact on the nation’s environment.
The director-general blamed desertification on climate change, over-grazing, the shrinking of Lake Chad and the cutting of trees by villagers for domestic cooking.
Mashi was represented at the event by a director at NIMET, Dr Clinton Ifeanyichukwu Ezekwe, who said that efforts by governments at all levels to plant trees had been thwarted annually by tree logging and urbanisation with the result that forests of the country are fast diminishing.
Former Minister of National Planning, Professor Abubakar Olarenwaju Sulaiman, who is now the director-general of the Nigeria Legislative Institute (NILDS), agreed in his keynote address that the nation faces serious environmental challenges that should be seriously tackled, which otherwise will throw the nation into a major crisis of epidemic proportion in the near future.
“Nigeria, as a developing country, must promote active and effective governance that delivers quality services to citizens and manages public goods, including land and other natural resources for the benefit of all.
“Sustainable development implies the need to meet the present demands without compromising those of the future. This goes beyond protecting finite recourses and ultimately includes protecting the environment and dealing with challenges of the 21st century in an effective and efficient manner,” Professor Sulaiman said.
Supporting the positions of the speakers, Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Abuja, Professor Yusuf Zoaka, said the national planning strategy was allowed to derail from the period the military changed the five-year development plan into a rolling programme, which had not served the nation well or promoted equitable development.
He emphasized that the nation’s leaders got the planning strategies wrong when long term plans which would have been more productive were jettisoned without providing something better as replacement.
Zoaka declared that social inequalities, failure by government at all levels and lack of parental care had helped to worsen the nation’s problems and might lead to a bigger crisis unless serious solutions were found to change the narrative.
The don advised against the growing neglect of quality education and also warned that insecurity may worsen when the government abdicates the responsibility of adequately protecting the citizenry.
“The people cannot protect themselves. Part of the primary duties of government includes the protection of lives and properties. The moment the government falls short in these areas, a serious problem arises.”
He faulted the policy of opening the nation’s borders to African nationals due to the faulty concept that Nigeria is the giant of Africa.
“Responsible people do not run a country that way because such things promote banditry, terrorism, robbery, and kidnapping, among others.”The faculty later conferred awards on several distinguished personalities, including the vice chancellor of the UniAbuja, Professor Abdul-Rasheed Na’Allah, and the vice chancellor, Nasarawa State University, Keffi (NSUK), Professor Suleiman Bala Mohammed, who was the chairman of the conference.
Pix caption: Ezekwe presenting his speech at the event
