From Kenneth Udeh, Abuja
Plans to tackle environmental degradation caused by climate change and Ecological disasters have been expedited by Senator representing Bayelsa West, Senator Seriake Dickson.
Henry Seriake, chairman of the senate committee on ecology and climate change made this known during an interactive session between the Senate and the Ecological Project Office of the Presidency.
The meeting summoned on the instance Bayelsa Senator to brainstorm on means to tackle the Nation’s environmental challenges had in attendance President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio; Permanent Secretary Ecological Project Office, Mallam Ibrahim Shehu; Director-General of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency, Prof. Mansur Matazu and the Minister of environment.
Dickson in his initial address spoke on the purpose of the meeting, he said;
“The challenges before our country calls for very serious concern. That’s why we called for this meeting to interact with the office of the Ecological Project Office and the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) to understand how the Senate can intervene.
Permanent Secretary Ecological Project Office, Mallam Shehu highlighted the challenges of the office in which he mentioned public misconceptions that the office is financially buoyant.
Shehu explained that the requests received by the office were overwhelmingly beyond its financial capacity.
He said; “As an office has been intervening in all the states, as of today we have more than 5000 of such requests emanating from communities. We also have with us a number of resolutions from the Senate and the House of Representatives.
“Some of our areas of intervention include gully erosion. Some of the problems include public misconceptions that we have Billions allocated to our office, but the truth is that what we have is very minimal compared to the amount of requests already captured in our database.
“As of today we have over 5000 requests running into trillions of naira but what we have allocated monthly is a figure between two to three million naira. We have been reaching out to states so that whatever we get at the federal level we can match it together to solve these problems.
NIMET’s DG Mansur Matazu harped on the need for increased public enlightenment to mitigate the effects of climate change.
He said; “Climate is not meant for our children, it’s now meant for us. Presently we issue weather forecast services to Nigerians at no cost. We have three options to climate changes, one is to adapt to the changes 2ndly is how we can mitigate the effects of this climate change and 3rdly is the suffering because suffering comes with the climate change and our environment is fast degrading so our part we are providing different services to assist the country prepare ahead.
The need to support both Agencies was stressed by the President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio. According to him the South-East and South South region were mostly affected by Ecological disasters.
Akpabio called for increased funding;
“I have traveled to the South East and there are many Ecological issues. You also need aid from both locals and foreign sources. In Bayelsa whenever water is released from the Cameroon dam houses are washed off.
“You can build a house there and expect to come back and see it like that in the next five years. This flooding extends to Akwa-Ibom and even Ondo States. In the forthcoming climate change summit in Dubai we will have our own session where we shall discuss all these. Let the public be well educated. I know you need funds and the Senate will assist you.