Basin

Chad Basin: Climate change threatening extinction of valuable Lake — Minister

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• published: 11 Nov 2016
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The Executive Arm of Government in Nigeria has ratified the Lake Chad Basin Charter signed in 2012. The Charter was ratified at the meeting of the Federal Executive Council in Abuja on Wednesday. It would be sent to the National Assembly for enactment into law. Threatened By Climate Change The Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, who hinted reporters about the ratification after the council’s meeting, said the lake had been threatened by climate change and that effort was being made to ensure the lake is safe from extinction. The council at the meeting looked at the last one year of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, assessing the progress so far, the challenges encountered and the tasks members of the council still have to tackle. After the meeting the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, said that the council also considered developments in the mining sector and looked at more exploration needed in that sector. Poor monitoring had affected the activities of the ministry in terms of checking miners’ activities to ensure that it conforms with standards. Do Something Urgent To boost monitoring, however, the Federal Executive Council approved the direct procurement of four-wheel patrol vehicles produced by Nissan for Mines Inspectorate Division of the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development in the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory. Dr. Fayemi cited the killing of miners in Zamfara State, saying that the ministry for over a decade, does not have surveillance vehicles to check such unfortunate incidence and oversee mining activities in other states. According to him, the approval was a show of the commitment of the Buhari’s administration to developing mining activities in Nigeria. The vehicles will cost 326,781 million Naira. The assessment of the performance of the council is coming one year after the cabinet was constituted by President Buhari months after he was sworn in. President Muhammadu Buhari had in August urged rich countries to do something urgent to save the Lake Chad from extinction, arising from the effects of climate change. he made the call at a meeting with the Director-General of UNESCO, Mrs Irina Bokova, in Abuja. President Buhari warned that the failure to regenerate the Lake Chad would lead to another round of migration by the people living in the areas. The President said Nigeria and the other countries of the Lake Chad Basin lacked the billions of dollars required to channel water from the Congo Basin into the lake to check its rapid depletion. “Those living in the Lake Chad region have suffered untold hardship and displacement because of the violence perpetrated by Boko Haram terrorists. “If there is no farming and fishing, they will dare the desert to migrate. “Unless the developed countries make concerted efforts to complete the feasibility study, mobilize resources and technology to start the water transfer from the Congo Basin, the Lake Chad will dry up. “The people will go somewhere and they will create problems for those countries,” the President told the visiting UN official. The lake is said to have shrunk by over 90 per cent in the last 50 years, a reason the Nigerian government is making efforts to save the lake.