Environmental governance in Nigeria’s new political cycle
By: Dominic A. Okoliko
Tags: Environment, Governance, Buhari, Ecology, Nigeria

Photo: A street in Onitsha. Source: CNN

As we get past inaugurations of elected officers from the 2019 general election, it is time to talk governance business. Importantly, this piece draws the attention of the new and returning officers to the ecological challenges that Nigeria faces. This is important for a number of reasons, first of which border on the ostensible absence of reference to the environment as both catalyst and challenge to development in the heated campaigns that preceded the elections. In an earlier opinion piece which I shared on this platform (see The PUNCH of February 8, 2019), I pointed out that the crop of the political elite who presented themselves for various positions of leadership failed to mainstream ecological challenge in their campaign rhetoric. The oversight was more evident for the presidential candidates who in their number of outings — for example, the (vice) presidential debate, and the NTA-hosted The Candidate TV show — ignored to discuss what policy priorities they had in place to tackle issues relating to waste and pollution management, and the more complex issues of climate change mitigation and adaptation.

The second reason follows from the first. The early days of a new dispensation are critical for agenda-setting. If for political expediency, the politicians had downplayed the ecological issues for more ‘hot’ political ones like ‘corruption’ during the pre-election debates, there is now a need to call their attention to the environmental challenges as they settle down to work.

On the environmental front, the Niger Delta oil mess is one area that deserves urgent national attention. The UNEP assessment of the severity of environmental pollution caused by decades of oil production in the region pointed out widespread damage to lands, waters, and biodiversity with consequences for human settlement and livelihood. Given the long term impacts of the environmental damage and their ability to defuse to the larger ecosystem, it is important that the leadership of the new government under President Muhammadu Buhari revisit the Ogoni (and the larger Niger Delta) clean-up programmes. The investigative piece on the clean-up by Premium Times on May 5, 2019, shows that little has been done on the job. Instead, the agencies charged to spearhead the exercise, Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration Project (HYPREP), is embroiled in corruption allegations and maladministration of contract. The piece particularly revealed that most of the contractors mobilised to work on the project are ill-qualified to handle it. It will be worthwhile if the government would take these findings seriously by investigating their validity. Beyond that, it is highly important that the present cycle of governance see to accelerating the clean-up of the entire Niger Delta so as to restore normalcy to ecological lives in the region.

The other point relates to the care of our environments in cities and towns. Most (if not all) states, including the Federal Capital Territory, in Nigeria struggle with waste management and have at best, sketchy policy plans in this regard. Heaps of refuse sit about in our neighbourhoods and our roads wear alarming litters which not only disturb the quality of the air Nigerians breathe but are also discomforting to the eyes. Our water bodies — streams, rivers, and seas — are heavy carriers of debris, including plastic materials that threaten aquatic life. With Nigeria’s growing population which have increased our dependence on fuel-use-pollutants from combustion engines, our environment is indeed in a deep crisis.

Recently, Nigeria received notorious recognition on this matter. In a World Health Organisation study that measures small particulate matter concentration (PM10), four of our cities were listed as the worst cities in the world for air quality — Onitsha, Kaduna, Aba, and Umuahia (number one, five, six and 16 in the world ranking respectively). It would be a lie to think that environmental decay is limited to these four cities. As evident in a last year report from the World Bank Little Green Data Book 2015, air pollution is a generic problem across Nigeria. The report estimated that about 95% of Nigeria’s population is exposed to air pollution levels that exceed WHO guidelines with dire health consequences.

The various tiers of government must work out strategies to improve environmental quality as they strive to improve living conditions in Nigeria. The inability of governments to prioritise the environment as deserving of policy concern may not be unrelated to the tendency to partition social challenge and treat them as isolated issues. Under this guise, economy, poverty, unemployment, corruption, and few others have been singled out as policy priorities in some government quarters as evident during the pre-election campaigns. But growing the economy, or improving job creation is not unrelated to the conditions of the nation’s environment given that environmental quality impacts on general productivity. Growth is driven by a healthy workforce, but we cannot talk of a healthy workforce when a greater population of Nigerians are endangered by increasing pollution. Also, poor soil quality and loss of biodiversity have negative impacts on agriculture which remains the largest sector in our economy.

World over talks about the ecological crisis has taken a new dimension with more citizens demanding that governments pitch higher stakes in ecological governance. Paramount in this regard is the teens- and kids-driven campaign led by Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teen who initiated school strike for climate movement now operating under various #tags: #ClimateStrike, #FridaysForFuture across the globe. This movement which began with Greta’s lone strike outside the Swedish parliament in 2018 is gradually taking roots in Africa, including Nigeria. Greta and the other kids are expressing a genuine fear: if we continue to act nonchalantly towards the integrity of the Earth, their generation and those to come would have a tougher world to live in.

For our country, the solutions lie in developing and implementing robust waste management that incorporates renewable, recyclable and reusable principles across different levels of society. It also calls for a cut in the use of polluting vehicles and machines, and consideration of carbon tax policy as South Africa recently did, provided the proceeds can be efficiently used to finance mitigation and adaption strategies. Citizens-driven greening initiatives like tree planting, and reclaiming of reclining forests should be incentivized. We all need to act, and to act fast to redeem Nigeria’s image and give a cleaner environment to future generations.

A version of this article earlier appeared on The Punch newspaper