Four years after Buhari was sworn into office as President of Nigeria, we take a look at how the government has fared in terms of keeping to its commitment of a free, safe and sustainable environment.
President Muhammadu Buhari signed the Paris Agreement on climate change in September, 2016, signaling Nigeria’s commitment to global effort to reverse the effects of global warming. That was just a year after he was sworn into office. Many Nigerians had their hopes raised that the government was joining more than 190 other forward thinking nations to pay more attention on environmental issues.
The Buhari government also initiated the Ogoni Land Cleanup project in Ogoni which had been polluted by oil exploration since the 1950s and remains one of the most enduring challenges in the South South. When the then Ministers of Environment, Amina Mohammed and Ibrahim Usman Jibril, assumed office in November 2015, they expressed commitment to policy implementation on environmental protection, natural resources conservation and sustainable development.
Among the commitments were the Ogoni Land Cleanup, waste management system, Green Economy and continuation of the Great Green Wall project to combat desert encroachment.
Ogoni Land Cleanup
Although the previous government led by President Goodluck Jonathan initiated the Ogoni Land Cleanup and requested the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to carry out an assessment of the pollution in Ogoni, the government of President Muhammadu Buhari proceeded to implement the report of the assessment which revealed the mind-boggling pollution in the area which had destroyed aquatic life and arable land.
A Professor, Hilary Inyang, who did a study on the pollution in Ogoni, had said in a media interview that it would cost $6bn to cleanup Ogoni and that it would cost an estimated $50bn to clean up the more than 2,000 polluted sites in the entire Niger Delta.
Although the cleaning has eventually begun, it remains a “baby step” towards clearing the land of spilled oil. It is estimated that it will take at least 20 years to finish the cleanup.
Green bond
The Buhari-led administration gave a boost to the green bond initiative with the holding of a Public Private Advisory Group meeting. The highlight of the meeting was the next step needed to issue Nigeria’s first sovereign green bond.
The meeting, which was headed by the then Minister of Environment, Amina Mohammed, and her Minister of State, Ibrahim Jibril Usman, and the Minister of Finance, was in consultation with experts and key actors aimed at coming up with key requirements in the issuance of a green bond by March 2019.
Green bonds, according to experts, have financial benefits as they can be used to support the portfolios of commercially viable projects which can provide a revenue stream that can offset the bonds.
The Federal Government was meant to commit the sum of N20bn for the pilot green bond in March, with the second issuance later.
The green bond project criteria aimed at benefiting the people will be segmented into different developmental projects: transportation, renewable energy, energising education programme, Great Green Wall and deforestation.
Source: Daily Trust