THE Catholic Diocese of Sokoto State, Mathew Kukah, and other Nigerians have blamed poor governance for climate crises in the country.
They took this stance at a Climate, Conflict and Fragility Summit 2024 organised by Clean Technology Hub in Abuja on Wednesday, July 31.
Kukah, one of the keynote speakers at the event, said Nigeria’s problem was that its leaders were bereft of ideas on how to solve the problems plaguing the country, including those caused by climate change.
He blamed federal and state governments for not utilising the ecological fund appropriated for tackling some of the climate change crises appropriately.
“If the federal government sets up an ecological fund with huge resources sunk into it and nothing happens, it becomes a playground for the governors. Nothing has happened, no one has gone to prison.
“Our problem is compounded by the fact we cannot process knowledge properly.
“Up till today, nobody in Nigeria has been appointed to a ministry because everybody has looked at the CV, and the more important the ministry is, the less likely you will have the right people,” he stated.
Speaking on the summit’s theme, “From Crisis To Resilience: Charting a Path Forward for Nigeria” the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Clean Technology Hub, Ifeoma Malo, said the event was to look at how to solve the seemingly intractable climate change issues in Nigeria.
According to her, the summit comes at a critical time when Nigeria faces unprecedented flooding, displacements, and conflicts aggravated by climate change.
“The evidence and the data exist. The policies are there and so the question is, what are we doing with all of these tools that we have in our possession?
“So our objective with this summit is to build a cohesive national conversation around these intertwined issues,” she stated.
She posited that the conference would identify some of the core challenges of climate change, develop actionable solutions and map out high climate and conflict hotspots.
Another keynote speaker at the event and Director of Research and Training at Dawah Institute of Nigeria, Nurudeen Lemu, said the relationship between climate change and conflict was very critical. He faulted the way it had been handled by the government.
Lemu described the issues around climate in Nigeria as of great concerns.
“These are very persistent complicated problems where nearly everything you try to do to solve it just compounds the problem. You try to solve one aspect, you find you are creating another problem.
“This problem of climate and environment is not one that is an easy problem to solve,” the cleric stated.
He blamed the farmers and herders crisis partly on the issues of climate change and warned of more challenges due to the nation’s growing population.
Lemu warned that if the country did not care about the poor, the poor would find their way through illegitimate means.
A reporter with the ICIR
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