FG Directs 4 Ministries, 11 Northern States To Combat Drought, Desert Encroachment

To combat the threat of desertification in the country, the federal government directed a joint collaboration between four federal ministries: Environment, Water Resources, Agriculture and Rural Development, and Power, as well as 11 drought-prone northern states and other relevant stakeholders on Thursday.

President Muhammadu Buhari issued the directive during a sideline meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, with Mr Ubrahim Thiaw, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

Read Also:  Leadership Crisis Rocks Kano NNPP As Kwankwaso Set To Join

Under the auspices of the Northern Governors Forum, President Buhari, who is attending the United Nations Environmental Programme’s (UNEP@50) Special Session, said the collaboration will involve the four federal ministries and agencies, as well as the 11 states prone to drought and desert encroachment.

In the run-up to the upcoming meeting on desertification in Cote D’Ivoire in May 2022, he also called for full cooperation between Nigeria and the UNCCD.

Mr Thiaw, for his part, said that in addition to the meeting in Cote D’Ivoire, a Climate Change conference would be held in Egypt later this year, noting that the Conference of the Parties (COP) would be returning to Africa after an 11-year absence.

On desertification, the UNCCD chief stated that Africa has lost about 60% of its arable land in the last 50 years, posing a feeding challenge.

“Land degradation is about food, peace, and security,” he says. And land restoration offers a variety of options. When you cultivate the land, it returns carbon to the soil.”

He claimed that no one is better qualified to speak on large-scale land restoration than Nigeria’s president, who is also the President of the Great Green Wall, claiming that Nigeria has the longest stretch of the Wall, which stretches over 1,000 kilometers.

Read Also:  In Niger State, Over 200 Bandits Were Killed In Just Four Days, Commissioner

Drought, according to Thiaw, has always existed, but it is now much more severe and a global issue.

He emphasized the importance of President Buhari’s leadership in guiding the process of addressing various pressing issues such as desertification, drought, and land restoration.