From Magnus Eze, Abuja
The National Orientation Agency (NOA) has cautioned Nigerians to minimise consumption of processed food but instead endeavour to grow what they eat and eat what they grow to ensure environmental sustainability.
Director-general, NOA, Dr. Garba Abari, gave the charge at a programme organised to mark World Environment Day for primary and secondary schools in Abuja, with the theme “Connecting People to Nature.”
Abari said Nigerians, as inhabitants of the earth, had a civic responsibility to protect and sustain the environment, because the negative effects of not caring for the environment affected all aspects of human life.
He said: “One way citizens can protect the environment is to plant food crops and trees that will also serve in checking desertification and other environmental concerns.
“This will further save foreign exchange and create jobs thus ensuring that the country at large is self-sufficient and on a sure path to national development.”
NOA team leader, Climate Change and Environment, Mrs. Stella Oneli, said the focus of the programme on primary and secondary schools was aimed at catching them young as lovers of the environment and invariably bequeathing a more secure environment to the younger generation.
She urged Nigerians to avoid indiscriminate dumping of refuse and called for increased use of energy-saving bulbs to mitigate the impact of gas emissions on the environment.