Abdul-Rahman Abubakar & Turaki A. Hassan
8 October 2008
The proposed National Desertification Commission yesterday scaled the crucial second reading stage at the Senate when the bill was unanimously passed.
The bill however faced initial opposition from mainly southern senators who pushed for inclusion of other environmental hazards in the responsibilities to be saddled the commission.
In his submission, lead sponsor of the bill Senator Ahmad Lawan (ANPP, Yobe North) explained the damage which desertification has caused the frontline states of Yobe, Adamawa, Katsina, Jigawa, Sokoto, Borno, Kebbi, Zamfara, Bauchi and Gombe.
Senator Lawan said "Between 50 percent and 75 percent of the states have been overtaken by desert. These states, with a total population of about 42 million people, account for about 43 percent of the country's land area. Other states are also affected in different ways by the menace."
He revealed that as a result of poverty, majority of Nigerians have resorted to cutting down of trees for fuel wood saying, "a study of Nigeria's forest cover in 2008 shows that between 1990 and 2000, Nigeria lost an average of 409,700 hectares of forest per year.
This amounts to an annual deforestation rate of 2.38 percent. Between 2000 and 2005, the rate of forest change increased by 31.2 percent to 3.12 per annum. In total, between 1990 and 2005, Nigeria lost 35.7 percent of its forest cover, or around 6,145, 000 hectares."
But in his contribution, Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu (PDP, Enugu West) said though he supports the bill there is the need to include other environmental hazards such as erosion and flood in the bill.
He said, "Desertification is an environmental issue, so also is erosion, coastline erosion, ocean surge and flooding. They are all related and we need to bring them together under this commission. If you set up a commission for desertification, tomorrow there will be another motion for erosion and other environmental problems. I believe that the problem should be dealt with together."
Disagreeing with the DSP's position, Senator Idris Umar (PDP, Gombe Central) said inclusion of other environmental challenges in the bill will make mockery of the effort to check rampaging desertification in the country.
"Establishing the commission and giving it well cut out responsibility will make it more focused. There is no need to over burden it with other environmental problems. Experience has shown that overburdened commissions in this country were not effective," Senator Umar said.
After much debate Senate President David Mark task governors of states affected by desertification to be committed to the effort of controlling the situation. He later put the question and the bill got unanimous support.
Senate therefore committed the bill to the committees on Establishment and Environment for further legislative action and to report back in two weeks.
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