Nowhere to Run…Saving Planet Earth for Our Children

Friday 4th February 2017 turned out to be a very rewarding day for me. I had received an invitation to attend the screening of a documentary titled Nowhere to Run at the Lagos Business School. The documentary, produced by the Shehu Musa YarAdua Foundation with financial assistance from the Canadian government, focuses on Nigeria’s growing climate and environmental crisis. Ken Saro-Wiwa (Jr) did the beautiful narration for this excellent film before his death. 

The documentary attempts to draw our attention to the harsh reality we face because there is a lot of ignorance and indifference amongst the people of the world. Most Nigerians are too busy making money and not paying attention to the environmental degradation. Should they be concerned? Yes! While clashes were commonly perceived as the outcome of religious disputes, some researchers with years of research experience in these communities have a working hypothesis that they were largely motivated by competition for resources, but surfaced alongside religious fracture lines. I tend to agree. This environmental crisis is at the heart of the communal clashes linked to the Fulani herdsmen and the local farmers in different parts of the country because the north is worst affected area. This has led to a cycle of violence and cycle of conflict. Land-related conflict due to climate change is forcing the pastoral farmers further south because 351,000 hectares of land is lost annually in Nigeria to desertification. The Sahara desert is advancing southwards at the rate of 6.0 percent every year. It is estimated that over 70 million Nigerians have a direct and indirect experience of the negative impact of drought and desertification. In March 2008, some experts concluded that an estimated 35 percent of land that was cultivatable 50 years ago is now desert in eleven of Nigeria’s nineteen northern states. The affected eleven states namely: Adamawa, Borno, Bauchi, Gombe, Katsina, Jigawa, Kano, Kebbi, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara are under intense pressure from the attack of climate change.

Lake Chad was once classified as the sixth largest natural, inland fresh water lake in the world (4th largest in Africa). According to Wikipedia, it has shrunk considerably since the 1960s, when its shoreline had an elevation of about 286 metres (938 ft) above sea level and it had an area of more than 26,000 square kilometres (10,000 sq mi), making its surface the fourth largest in Africa. Lake Chad has been heavily devastated by desertification and shrunk to 1,304 square kilometres by 2015, which has come with enormous economic losses and negative impact on the people within the area. The stark reality is that Lake Chad covers less than 10% of the area it occupied in 1960. Today, fishermen cannot fish anymore. When water diminishes, communal clashes increase as people move towards other water sources. Crop yields of farmers in more southerly states such as Niger, Plateau, Kogi and Benue have dropped and, at the same time, northerners are migrating south looking for greener pastures for their cattle, and that leads to increased conflict over land. The case of the Segev community in Benue State who have had many bloody clashes with migrating herdsmen was highlighted in the documentary. 

What is the major cause of the desertification? Wood consumption! The documentary revealed that firewood is seen as the most dependable source of energy for most low income homes. Experts like Kabiru Yammama of the National Forest Conservation Council of Nigeria stated that: “Deforestation constitutes 75 percent of the environmental problems in northern Nigeria” He added that the increasing need for wood fuel for domestic use has caused the rapid depleting of trees which has caused increasing havoc on the environment and put farming activities at great risk”. 

He revealed that the population burns over 40.5 million tonnes of firewood each year which destroys over 400,000 hectares of forest. 

One of the worst affected areas is Yobe State in northern Nigeria. According to Suleiman Garba, project manager of the federal government-funded North East Arid Zone Development Programme, sand dunes are encroaching at a rate of 30 hectares a year, taking over entire villages. In an interview with a BBC Africa crew, Aminu Mahmud, a resident of Bulamadua village in Yobe State, who has already lost two different houses to the advancing sand said: 

"What we do is that when the sand moves and buries our homes and farms and even our wells, we simply keep retreating southwards"

Other affected areas include Borno, Bauchi, Gombe, Adamawa, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Zamfara, Sokoto and Kebbi states. Experts say that the number of people threatened are more than the combined population of Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Mauritania.  In 2010, I saw huge sand dunes, similar to the ones I have seen while on safari in the Dubai deserts, right here in Nigeria during visits to some local governments areas in Kano State. Scary and worrying sights! Coincidentally, the military regime headed by then General (now President) Muhammadu Buhari in 1984, launched a tree planting campaign in Nigeria as a way to bring to national consciousness to the dangers of rapid depletion of the nation’s vegetation and the need to adopt a more sustainable use of forest resources by replanting trees to recover the fading cultivatable lands owing to desert encroachment. The project does not appear to have had sustained effect as a result of policy somersaults. Researchers are reaching the conclusion that there are virtually no more big trees in Northern Nigeria.

Are you still wondering why militancy succeeded in the Niger delta?  Damage from oil spills in the Niger delta is one of the highest in the world. Take the case of the Ikamara community in Bayelsa state. Their food system is polluted, water is polluted. Their lifestyle ruined. Take the case of Bode community in Rivers State where the traditional fishing industry has been destroyed. The fish caught in the waters now smell of kerosene which make it unsafe for human consumption. Large tracts of land have been rendered inhabitable through oil spills and deliberate sabotage with major health problems for the population.

We are reminded that the vast mangrove forests that once provided protection against the surging Atlantic Ocean in Bonny has been steadily decimated with several village communities forced to retreat further inland as their villages are washed away by the sea. This is scary as one heard that a one metre rise in sea level could cause 75% loss of land mass in the Niger delta. Nearly 4% of Nigerian rain forest disappears every year due to uncontrolled logging activities without supportive sustainable tree planting programmes. This leads to massive erosion, forcing hundreds of people to relocate every year. The case of the Nanka Valley in Anambra received special mention. Ogbakuba region also in Anambra State is experiencing excessive climate-induced flooding. The documentary takes us to the people of the Ekuri community who have vowed to preserve their natural environment and rain forest from degradation.

The documentary asked a key question: How can we live in a place that has abundant gas and live in darkness? Why are we not harnessing the gas to power our homes and cook, saving the forest in the process? Routine gas flaring was outlawed in 1984, but the practice continues till date. About 63 to 65 per cent of the Gas produced during the production of crude oil is being flared resulting in the burning of over $3.5 to $5 billion yearly from the over 257 flow stations in the Niger Delta. Speaking in November 2015, the former Managing Director of Nigeria LNG, Mr. Babs Omotowa, disclosed that his company’s efforts have reduced gas flaring significantly down from 65 per cent to 20 per cent. In April 2015, chief executives from major oil companies and senior government officials from several oil-producing countries met in the United States of America and agreed to end the practice of gas flaring at oil production sites globally latest by 2030. Will Nigeria met this target? Time will tell.

The documentary ends with a thought-provoking Igbo proverb which says

”he who burns down his father’s house, inherits the ashes”. 

We are reminded that planet Earth is not our inheritance. We are trustees who are required to leave it in a better shape than we met it so that our children and grandchildren will have a world safe enough to live in. Get involved today. Tomorrow may be too late.