by Alexander O. Onkwue
The Minister for State for Environment, Mr Ibrahim Usman Jibril paid a visit to the Benue State Governor as part of a delegation of the Federal Government to commiserate with the people of the state on the occurrence of the floods.
As tweeted by the Federal Ministry of Environment, Mr Jibril “reiterate[d] President Muhammadu Buhari’s commitment to ongoing intervention” and also “spoke on the need for collective effort to fight climate change”. Since after the departure of Amina Mohammed to the United Nations, Mr Jibril has manned the affairs of the Ministry and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) is one of the agencies with which the Ministry looks to partner and collaborate.
Under President Buhari’s administration since 2015, the Ministry of Environment has had more visibility than it had in some time, owing, in good measure, to the experience brought into the job by the out-gone former Minister, Mrs Mohammed. Beginning with the signing of the Paris Climate Change agreement in 2015, to the launch, in 2016, of the Ogoni clean-up as recommended in the 201 1 UNEP report, the Government appeared to be serious about the Environment and with tackling the environmental problems facing the country.
However, the initial momentum has appeared to stall over the past year. Not a drop of oil has been cleaned in the degrading Ogoni areas, activities of terrorists in the North East continue to make the environment hostile for habitation and the crisis of internal displacement shows no signs of immediate coming to an end.
With the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in mind, it would appear imperative on the Buhari Government to begin to put the boots on the ground that will change the status of Nigeria’s living communities towards making them more sustainable. That would conform precisely to the 11th of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, but the effects will translate to all other as well, from No Hunger and Zero Hunger (Goals 1 and 2), through Decent Work and Economic Growth (Goal 8), to ensuring Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions (Goal 16).
These are achievable goals and but there are already two years off from the fifteen-year period set for attaining them by 2030. Having come into power few months before the goals were adopted, it can be hoped that the Buhari administration will still leverage on the clearly outlined goals and indicators in the 2030 Agenda as its map.
The challenges of floods and natural disasters are not unique to Nigeria, and, though they are unfortunate incidents, floods have also be periods that bring “untold wealth and prosperity to civilizations”, according to the UN’s Guidelines for Reducing Flood Losses. The key is to rebuild sustainably.
September is the month for commemorating the Sustainable Development Goals. Moving forward from the August disasters, there is an opportunity to focus on the goals and start scoring on them.
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