Taiwo Olawale
11 November 2009
Lagos — The environmental crisis in Jigawa State has reached a level where the Federal and the state government have to do something drastic, the state governor, Sule Lamido, has said.
Speaking during a working visit to the Minister of Environment in Abuja, Governor Lamido said every year, substantial parts of Hadejia Township is swept away by flood.
"The town has to be secured from this which requires more than a poor state like Jigawa can afford alone, because it is a near state of emergency", said Lamido. Describing Hadejia as a strategic town, the governor said what is happening required networking because it is affecting the roads.
He expressed confidence that with assurances given already by President Yar'Adua and the understanding and support of the Minister and the Ministry, Jigawa environmental crisis could be salvaged, adding that the state had, on its part, already planted 8 million trees, 5 millions of which have survived.
Alhaji Lamido described this as a substantial response to their own assessment of the threat of desertification and sand dunes movement in the state.
The Governor spoke of how he had prioritised the environment from day one because his government believed that it is a major contradiction that there is so much land in Nigeria and yet majority of the people are poor.
This contradiction requires an environmental answer, he further told Mr. John Odey, the Minister for Environment, who agreed with the governor that his state is one of the most vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change.
The impacts of climate change is here, said the minister, who added that unless Nigeria puts the environment on the agenda before the pending Copenhagen Session, the country could be left behind on adaptation strategies.
Odey further said that it was not just the Federal Government that should "prioritise the environment in our quest for development, but collaboration across the entire society is required".
He said the Ministry had already been working with key staff of the Jigawa State Government since the choice of Jigawa as the place where the ministry flagged off the Tree Planting Campaign for this year, assuring that the Presidential Environmental Programme would fully collaborate with the Jigawa emergency in line with assurances of the President.
Governor Lamido was accompanied on the working visit to the Ministry by the Minister of special duties, Alhaji Ibrahim Kazaure, Honourable Zanna Habbeb Mustapha from Jahun/Miga Federal Constituency, as well as Hussain Namadi from Hadejia Federal Constituency.
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One of Jigawa's problems is the infestation of Typha grass in its waterways. Typha clogs drainage and aggravates flooding. It dessicates and silts up your waterways until they no longer function. It is a driving engine in the process of desertification (as are water hyacinth, water lettuce, papyrus, and phragmites). It is also a huge biomass resource, waiting to be exploited for energy and fiber. Harvest it, and control its regrowth at a profit. It is frighteningly renewable. You'll like the side effects of clearance: reduction in malaria, bilharzia and Quelea.