United Nations (U.N.) Executive Director on Environment, Erick Solhiem, has promised to assist Nigeria to enable the country tackle its major environmental challenges. Solhiem, who stated this during an advocacy visit to the Minister of State for Environment, Ibrahim Jubril in Abuja, cited the Ogoni cleanup, Lake Chad region, erosion in parts of the country and desertification, as some of the key environmental issues facing Nigeria.
He also said it was time for the people of the Niger Delta region to embark on real action after seven years of inactivity, adding: We may come to offer solutions. According to him, Nigeria cannot change without changing its environmental problems.
These need practical solutions and the UN may come to do them soon. He further noted that solar energy is the new source of energy generation, like China and India, stressing that modern technology has a lot of advantage over conventional means.
On the plastic pollution campaign, Solhiem maintained that with Africans 1.2 billion population, private and public sectors could bring in machines to recycle the waste products. While making his presentation on Environmental Issues in Nigeria 2015-2018, Jibril said N500 million was proposed for emergency remediation, but got N283 million.
He disclosed that government would release money to Explorer Accounts for the Ogoni cleanup project, adding, 10,000 people have been treated for different ailments in the area.
He explained that they received over 400 consultants on the cleanup programme, while 162 firms have been selected for another phase of bidding that would end in 2019.
(Guardian)
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