Global Melting Ice – How Will it Burn Nigeria?

By

Aliyu Salisu Barau

aliyubarau1@yahoo.co.uk

aliyubarau@gmail.com

 

The theme for this year’s World Environment Day (WED 2007) as set by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) is Melting Ice – A Hot Topic? The theme reflects the global increasing worries on the climate change debate. Indeed, it is a hot issue that scalds minds and makes one to scold every still and (steel?) person or group that underrates the survival of humans and their fellow creation on the planet Earth. At a first glance, many Nigerians including the educated may feel that this year’s theme does not significantly affect the ecological anxieties of the African peoples. Some may even feel that Ice, avalanches and snows are features of the geography of the extra tropical countries. Some Nigerians have still harbour the indifferent feeling that the impacts of climate change may be restricted to the country’s coastal edges. I want to believe that majority of Nigerians do not clearly understand the concepts of the climate change and its impending crises to a developing country like ours. Presumably, the Hausas though far from the coast may grasp the idea of climate change through their addiction to BBC, VOA, Voice of Germany and host of other international media that broadcast in Hausa language. Fortunately, such media organizations make a lot of coverage on issues like climate change, global warming, Kyoto conventions etc. Such terms now do have established coinages in the vernacular. Of course, this does not mean that the Hausas have sufficiently appreciated what global warming is all about. Other Nigerians especially those close to the coast and most vulnerable to coastal flooding may not be well informed about the climate change issues as compared to Hausas because the Nigerian media does not give the issue a weight coverage. This generally means that Nigerians know only too little about global warming.

 

Occasionally, some fairly educated Nigerians ask what exactly is climate change all about? Some ask for the implications on Nigeria. I know that, for such people climate change and its attendant issues is just another rocket science. I find it extremely simply to explain what climate change is for the natives of the tropics like Nigerians. I often use a simple example to explain that. I have assumption that, the enquirer knows that our planet, the Earth is a mighty and expansive phenomenon of which water constitutes about 70% of its total size. And about 30% of the said 70% is constituted by ice. This water interconnects with each other either as sea, ocean, river or lake. Now, with this knowledge at the back of mind, the real example comes: you have a deep freezer well stocked with variety of wet and other perishable items; after a week, all the items will be extremely frozen and then light goes off. Bit by bit, all the ice will melt and soon the freezer will be full of water especially if excess water exit is closed. In the same fashion, the increase in global temperature levels as a result of army of human inhuman activities such as unguarded and unjustifiable over-deforestation and dumping of the various forms of industrial chemicals into the atmosphere thereby causing a tilt in the natural balance of the atmospheric composition. The direct consequence of these crimes is the continuous increase in the global surface and atmospheric temperature which leads to the melting of the ice which flows into the sea. Increase in the volume of the seas and oceans automatically means the wiping out of many settled and unsettled archipelagoes and islands across the world. Many coastlines will also be wiped away or permanently threatened.

 

Nigeria as a country with a very long, resourceful and well settled and deeply invested coastline is prone to all such worries and crises. Lagos, the Nigeria’s industrial and business capital is already facing sea wrath threats. The Niger delta which is the treasure-base of the country will equally be affected. In effect, no part of Nigeria is exempted from these threats. Climate change is going to affect the country’s agro-ecological zones and these means a general unwanted shift in what is cultivable and what is not. For instance, rice, cotton, yam, potatoes and wheat fields may shift from their present environments. Besides, the weather is going to be generally uncertain and very unreliable. Will such happen the country will be thrown into worst confusions, tradeoffs, dilemmas and destructions that are quite inestimable. Climate change is bound to affect our livelihoods, architectural designs, land economic productivity and overall ecological productivity and host of others.

 

One may think that environmentalists are merely spelling doom for the God guarded planet. Or that what we are saying will only come in hundreds of years to come. That is not true. Humans have invited the wrath of God by destroying what he beautifully designed and developed millions of years before the humans got settled on the earth. Beside, no one can say precisely when disaster may strike especially if all the cracks of burst have appeared everywhere. Today, every young adult Nigerian can tell you that, it is hotter than when he or she was 12 years. The series of media reports on flooding worldwide and researches being carried all over the world have always confirmed our fears. Then what can Nigerians do?

 

The people and government in Nigeria have a lot to offer in solidarity with the Earth. The government and people should act locally and think globally. At our individual levels, we can do a lot in reducing our levels of emission by reducing and checking excesses. For example, within our rooms our electric appliances emit when they are on stand-by. We can always put them off. When we plant more trees we are helping in cleaning the atmosphere. On the other hand, the Nigerian government should do every thing to enter and respect all the international treaties and conventions on environmental sustainability. But, it is rather unfortunate that presently Nigeria lacks a clean bill of health for environmental sustainability. The government has in the name of public service reforms merged the environment ministry with others as if there are no too much challenges on the front of the environment. It is painful that though President Yar Adua and Vice President Goodluck come from states that suffer from series of ecological crises yet they could not enlist environmental sustainability as one of the seven point priority agenda of their government. Our only hope lies with the Executive Governor of Jigawa State Alhaji Sule Lamido whose state falls within same ecological belt with Katsina State, the home of Mr. President. Governor Sule Lamido said clearly in his inaugural speech that, he would invite Wangare Mathaai, the Nobel laureate to come to Jigawa to help in addressing the ecological inadequacies of the well suffered state.

 

Aliyu Salisu Barau

Geography Department

Federal College of Education, Kano

Nigeria