No fewer than 30 persons representing the Ekuri community in Cross River State, along with several others resident in Abuja, will on Monday, 27 June 2016 present a signed petition to President Muhammadu Buhari protesting the construction of a highway in the state.
Ekuri people kicking against the project
On January 22, 2016, the Cross River State Government, preparatory to the execution of the proposed Superhighway project, revoked a swathe of 5,200 square kilometers of 185 community lands including forests, farmlands, settlements and part of the Cross River National Park.
Residents of affected communities fear they will be landless, shortchanged of their livelihoods, culture and spirituality and the rich biodiversity, watersheds, wildlife, and lose medicinal plants.
Three local organisations – Ekuri Initiative, Non-Governmental Coalition for the Environment (NGOCE) and the Wise Administration of Terrestrial Environment and Resources (WATER) – have taken up a campaign against the revocation as well as the realisation of the Superhighway. The Ekuri community, with a total forestland of 33,600 hectares (ha), had petitioned Governor Ben Ayade.
The campaigners are now apparently taking the struggle to a different level with the plan to submit the 250,000-signature petition to Aso Rock next week.
About 10,000 protest signatures appear to have already been collected from communities, even as the coalition has agreed to step up the signatures to 50,000 to add up to the over 200,000 signatures from the international petition.
Coalition members are currently sensitising the communities and collecting signatures. On Friday, 24th June all signatures collected will be packaged at the NGOCE office in Calabar.
Rainforest Rescue, an international non-profit organisation committed to preserving rainforests, protecting their inhabitants, and furthering social reforms, has joined in the campaign and helping to facilitate the collection of some 50,000 local signatures. Others involved in the campaign include Leventis Foundation, Chief Robert Dunn, and Rights and Resource Initiative (RRI).
Commenting on recent developments and justifying the need for the petition, Martins Egot, the Ekuri Initiative chairman, said: “The government of Cross River State arranged a team of consultants to hurriedly put together an EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) report for the superhighway project to respond to the demand by the Federal Ministry of Environment. The EIA was open to public comments through writing and in a forum held in Calabar. The outcome of the forum sent clear signals to the government of Cross River State that they have a bad case.
“To cover their weakness, the government is resorting to propaganda, using political office holders to organise protest with hired crowd in the capital city of Calabar, and sending lobby teams to Abuja to impress on the Federal Government to approve the bad EIA. This makes the mobilisation of community people affected by the revocation order and the construction of the superhighway in Cross River State, Nigeria a matter for urgent action.”
Observations by a stakeholder of defining differences during the environmental impact assessment review and hearing on the proposed Superhighway project in Calabar, Cross River State
Bulldozers at work clearing the Super Highway’s route passing through parts of Boki
So much has been said and heard in the last six months over the road that the Cross River State Governor Ben Ayade proposes to cut from the Calabar and Bakassi ports to Katsina Ala in Benue State. The governor calls it a modern, digital superhighway, among other superlatives used to describe the controversial infrastructure project. Ben Ayade, a professor of environmental science, actually made a living working on environmental impact assessments and audits from a private laboratory, donated by Shell before assuming office as state governor. To emphasise his resolve, Ayade had invited the nation’s president and his predecessors in Cross River, Lyel Imoke and Donald Duke, to a ground-breaking ceremony for his dream.
There are not a few who believe that President Buhari appears to have been impressed by the rhetoric of Ben Ayade into giving his blessing to the Superhighway, having earlier wisely declined invitations after initial protests from environmental groups and communities along the route of the proposed Superhighway. The governor had promised that the proposed route would link the North with a dredged and enhanced Atlantic seaport at Calabar, and thus act as a rapid “evacuation corridor” (according to Ben Ayade) to interface land and water transportation for economic activities in Nigeria, and bilateral trade with Cameroun.
So, President Buhari went to Calabar to launch the superhighway project, but must be regretting his decision by now. The Federal Ministry of Environment under a new minister and permanent secretary has ordered a stop to the Superhighway construction, pending the submission by the state government of a standard and statutory environmental and social impact assessment. Such an impact assessment was submitted and reviewed in the first week of June, 2016.
What emerged before that, in recent months, can only be qualified as the widest international protest against environmental damage in Nigeria since the Ogoni-Shell imbroglio. The Cross River environment is one of the best studied in Nigeria, on account of its magnificent forests. The area is listed as one of the world’s 200 biodiversity hotspots, as a result of which Cross River State has been Nigeria’s greatest beneficiary from international funding for projects ranging from land tenure, to community forestry, agriculture, ecotourism and biodiversity conservation, gender equality, and adult education.
Being an environmentalist himself, the governor should know that nowhere in the world of the 21st century can anyone destroy massive swathes of pristine forests for a highway, and get away with it. Ben Ayade perhaps means well for his people, but has possibly not done the Superhighway cost-benefit analysis accurately. He had also not reckoned with the power of civil society to obstruct foreign finance of the project, on grounds of a disregard for human rights and biodiversity conservation, at a time Nigeria had acceded to a series of related multilateral environmental and climate change agreements.
Plagued by youth unemployment, urban drift, rising crime and prostitution, communal fighting, weak agricultural yields, the drop in revenues from its annual carnival, and little or no money from a much trumpeted ecotourism, the Cross River State Government started to cut trees and move communities for the Calabar-Ikom-Katsina Ala Superhighway of 260 km. The road would be fitted with security lighting and furnished with internet access throughout its length, in addition to interchange and clover tongues at intersections with other roads.
The protests of the environment lobby and communities on the Superhighway path notwithstanding, Governor Ayade has his supporters for a project his government clearly views as a development catalyst. The two combatants, environmentalists and economists, met in a showdown hearing at the Channel View Hotel in Calabar in a presentation of the EIA by the proponents. A review panel appointed by the Ministry of Environment was on the high table as the arbiters of the contest. Initially, in the presentation of the lead EIA consultant, Bassey Chukwuma, emotion was more persuasive than technical analysis and expertise; we heard more fiction than fact.
There was pure conjecture of the benefits of the project than its impacts. In his concluding remarks, the consultant fired threats at the panel, warning them not to jeopardise the future of Cross River State in their review. What part of the audience wondered was why the consultants had in their report not interacted with the Cross River State Forestry Commission, the Nigerian National Parks Service which manages over 40% of the forested habitats in the state as a combination of protected areas and inviolate sanctuaries.
Additionally, the UNDP has based its REDD+ project in Calabar in an attempt to address the problems of poverty and forest conservation. REDD+ is a deliberate land use system that aims at Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation of participating countries, thereby increasing global carbon stocks, thereby offering financial incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from forested lands and to invest in low carbon paths to sustainable development. According to this scheme, nations would receive payments for emissions-reduction credits determined on the basis of actual reductions in forest emissions measured against agreed-upon baselines.
The promise of this programme is that it offers opportunities to make progress on two goals at once: (1) reducing forest degradation and (2) reducing emissions that contribute to climate change. The challenges, which are far from trivial, are to establish baselines that are both fair and effective, and to assure that monitoring and verification procedures are sufficiently rigorous as to provide reliable, accurate measures of actual emissions reductions.
World-renowned conservation groups, such as the Drill Ranch and the World Conservation Society, are embedded in research and wildlife protection in Cross River State. The activities of these organisations in the forests of Cross River are most prominent on colourful posters, flyers and brochures of the achievements of the state but were not consulted and mentioned in the impact assessment. How would the donor community that had thrown so much money into these forests for over half a century, react to seeing valuable vegetation and biodiversity decimated in a few weeks in the name of infrastructure development?
A conspiracy theory has it that the date and venue of this EIA public hearing had been hidden from the protesting faction. The main actors, the Ekuri community members, were nowhere to be seen at the EIA review. The Ekuri Initiative and the Ekuri community have instituted three cases in court ranging from protection of their fundamental human rights, to the illegality of the revocation and restraining the government of Cross River State from constructing the super highway through the Ekuri community forest pending the determination of the substantive suit.
Reminiscent of a kangaroo court, unrestricted hecklers inside the hall attempted to shout down the few opponents of the Superhighway as praise singing in its favour dominated. That was up to a point, when someone raised the question as to how much the other states, those in the North, and if possibly the Republic of Cameroun, benefitting from the Superhighway were willing to contribute to its costs. And if Cross River State was going to foot the bill alone, where was Governor Ben Ayade going to raise the money? Why had the existing federal road been left in such an abysmal state, to be used as a propaganda excuse for the superhighway?
By the year 2005, the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) listed Nigeria as the country with the highest deforestation rate in the world, and the following year the country responded with a National Forest Policy. A small group argued that the people of Cross River State and Nigeria at large could not be conformed to one normative standard approach that embarks on transforming every natural environment into infrastructure projects that could be as wasteful and dormant as the Tinapa Shopping Centre and Model City in the Akampa Local Government Area. That white elephant was touted by a former governor of Cross River State, the saxophone-playing Donald Duke as the rival of Dubai, yet is yielding no revenue, rusting away and decaying before the eyes of the state citizens.
During the EIA review, the most crucial subject was actually the least debated – the fate of communities and the biodiversity in the forests that would be destroyed and disturbed, and what could be done in remediation and or mitigation? The consultants pasted a series of confusing images depicting the proposed route of the Superhighway. In many cases, these were not aligned to the density of settlements and forests. A re-settlement programme for communities to be dragged out of the way during construction, and compensation for their homes and farms was not quantified in monetary value, and therefore left to empty promises.
Moreover, the impacts of a highway proximate to a protected area, the consequences of noise and commerce encircling the Cross River National Park, and how this would open the way for illegal logging and poaching of endangered species, was not in the analytics of the consultants. Questions asked by some in the audience as to how much damage to the forest had already been done by bulldozers before the EIA was produced remained unanswered in the hall. The international outcry over the destruction of these forests, had been dismissed by some staff of the Cross River State Government as an international conspiracy. Why and how, and who exactly the conspirators were, they and the consultants failed to explain.
Would the Superhighway if and when started ever be completed? This was a point that was not discussed loudly, but in hushed voices. The EIA had no to time frame, no projected start and completion dates. The danger is that tractors and bulldozers will sit and decay in the forests on an uncompleted Superhighway for decades that will signal the extinction of biological and communal life in and around the forests of Cross River State.
Norway on Monday, 20 June 2016 deposited its instrument of ratification of the Paris Agreement with the United Nations.
Tine Sundtoft, Minister for Climate and Environment of Norway
At the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21), held in Paris, France last December, the Parties adopted the Paris Climate Change Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The Agreement was opened for signature on 22 April 2016 at a high-level signature ceremony convened by the Secretary General in New York. At that ceremony, 174 States and the European Union signed the agreement and 15 States also deposited their instruments of ratification.
As of 21 June 2016, there are 177 signatories to the Paris Agreement. Of these, 18 States have also deposited their instruments of ratification, acceptance or approval accounting in total for 0.18 % of the total global greenhouse gas emissions.
The Agreement shall enter into force on the 30th day after the date on which at least 55 Parties to the Convention accounting in total for at least an estimated 55 % of the total global greenhouse gas emissions have deposited their instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession with the Depositary.
Authoritative information on the status of the Paris Agreement, including information on signatories to the Agreement, ratification and entry into force, is provided by the Depositary, through the United Nations Treaty Collection website. Read more here.
The Lagos State Government has signed an agreement with the City of Dubai for the creation of Africa’s first smart city.
Lagos State Attorney-General and Commissioner of Justice, Adeniji Kazeem, and the Chief Executive Officer of Smart City Dubai LLC, Jabber Bin Hafez signing the MoU, in the presence of Chairman of Dubai Holdings, Ahmad Bin Byat, who is also the Deputy Prime Minister and the Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the Lagos Smart City was on Monday signed at the Emirate Towers by the Lagos State Attorney-General and Commissioner of Justice, Adeniji Kazeem, and the Chief Executive Officer of Smart City Dubai LLC, Jabber Bin Hafez.
The signing of the MoU, which will make Lagos the home of the very first Smart City in Africa, was witnessed by the Chairman of Dubai Holdings, Ahmad Bin Byat, who is also the Deputy Prime Minister and the Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode.
A Smart City is a growing concept that draws from the success of Dubai’s innovative knowledge-based industry clusters “to empower business growth for companies and knowledge workers all over the world”.
In a statement issued on Tuesday and endorsed by the Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Steve Ayorinde, the Smart City Lagos is expected to bring multi-billion-dollar investments to the city, create several thousands of jobs and transform the Ibeju-Lekki axis in particular and the entire Lagos State in general.
“This is a deliberate attempt by us to establish a strong convergence between technology, economic development and governance,” Governor Ambode was quoted in the statement as saying.
“The MoU between Lagos State Government and Dubai Holdings, LLC, owners of Smart City (Dubai) to develop a sustainable, smart, globally connected knowledge-based communities that drive knowledge economy,” he added.
The governor stated that the collaboration is part of the larger vision to make Lagos safer, cleaner and more prosperous.
He said: “A smart-city Lagos will be the pride of all Lagosians just as we have Smart City Dubai, Smart-City Malta and Smart-City Kochi (India). We are encouraged by the fact we do not, as a government, need to develop at a slow pace, but take full advantage of the digital age and fast track development of Lagos to a real megalopolis that we can all be proud of. The future is ours to take. It also marks the first smart city in Africa when completed.”
The governor added that, apart from creating jobs for the people, the project would also become the world’s first carbon neutral city. “Lagos,” he stated, “will become an important centre for innovations in smart technologies, wellness and destination for green tourism.”
Earlier in his remarks, the Deputy Prime Minister Bin Byat said the Dubai authorities were impressed with the conduct and readiness of Lagos State Government and were eager to proceed with the government and the Smart City Lagos company, which is the operating entity for the project.
When completed, the Smart City Lagos will have, among other features, a 12-lane road, hotel resorts, world-class technological education facilities and a rail metroline.
Ayorinde said the signing ceremony was also witnessed by the Chairman of Smart City Lagos Ltd, Prof. Pat Utomi; the Special Adviser to the Governor on Overseas Affairs and Investment, Prof. Ademola Abass; Chairman, Public Accounts Committee of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Olanrewaju Oshun, Dipo Famakinwa and Obafemi Saheed.
Three armed men marched into a village in the Philippines region of Mindanao last September and ordered Dionel Campos and his relative, Bello Sinzo, out of their homes. They were activists fighting a new mining operation who remained there with their families in spite of threats. In front of fellow villagers and students at a local school, the two men were executed. Afterward, the gunmen fired their weapons skyward, causing the villagers to scatter.
Bello Sinzo was shot in front of the community in Surigao del Sur. He was killed along with, Dionel Campos and Emerito Samarca.
When the villagers returned, they found a third victim. Emerito Samarca, executive director of the Alternative Learning Centre for Agricultural and Livelihood Development, was dead in a chair with his hands bound, a stab wound to his stomach and his throat slit, local newspapers reported. No arrests have been made.
A report released on Monday by the non-profit watchdog group Global Witness claims that 2015 was the deadliest yet for people who sought to protect their land, forests and rivers from mining, logging and dams. The report, “On Dangerous Ground” called the 185 deaths it uncovered from news reports and public records “shocking,” a nearly 60 percent increase from the previous year, “and the highest annual toll on record.”
“More than three people were killed every week in 2015 — more than double the number of journalists killed in the same period,” the report said.
The most dangerous countries for environmentalists were Brazil, where 50 were slain; the Philippines, where 33 were killed; and Colombia, where 26 people lost their lives. At least 42 slayings were linked to mineral-mining operations, the most among categories that included logging and dam building.
According to said Billy Kyte, the report’s author and a researcher for Global Witness, the toll in other countries could be higher than Brazil’s because the group could only uncover deaths where there was some record of a fatality. In many nations, slayings are not reported. “We think this is the tip of the iceberg,” Kyte said.
As it was the year before, Latin America was the world’s most dangerous region for people trying to protect natural resources in 2015. With the slaying of acclaimed Honduran environmental activist Berta Cáceres Flores in March, along with the killing weeks later of Nelson Garcia, a fellow worker with the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), 2016 threatens to be worse, Kyte said.
“The environment is emerging as a new human rights battleground,” Kyte said. The reason, he said, that hardly anyone is brought to justice for these crimes is that governments are assisting a broader corporate quest for resources on virgin land, and leaders of indigenous groups are fighting them in remote areas where killers can easily escape or intimidate witnesses.
Nearly 40 percent of those killed were from indigenous groups, Kyte said. “Activists are being repressed the world over in many countries and governments because people know they can get away with it.”
The slain, according to the report, included Rigoberto Lima Choc, a Guatemalan teacher who spoke out against river pollution caused by a palm oil operation. He was shot on the steps of a court building in the town of Sayaxché. Saw Johnny was gunned down by unidentified assailants in the Karen State of Myanmar after advocating for stronger land rights in the state. Alfredo Ernesto Vracko Neuenschwander was shot and killed near his home in Peru’s biodiverse Tambopata region, where he protested a gold mine.
Maria das Dores dos Santos Salvador was kidnapped and killed in August, likely for speaking out against the sale of her community’s land in the rural Amazonas area of Brazil. Sandeep Kothari’s body was found beaten and burned in June after the journalist wrote a critique of sand mining in India’s Balaghat district. Each of the activists, Global Witness said, faced numerous death threats before they were killed and, in the case of Kothari, “intimidation by police.”
After Campos and other villagers were killed in the Philippines, his 17-year-old daughter, Michelle, left school and took up his fight and the cause of finding his killers, placing her own safety at risk. Her mission was duplicated less than a year later when Cáceres’ daughter, Bertha Zúniga Cáceres, abandoned her studies to continue the crusade against the building of a dam and press Honduras to find her mother’s killers.
Cáceres is the most famous of the slain activists, a 2015 winner of the prestigious global Goldman Environmental Prize awarded every year in San Francisco for environmental justice workers. When organisers of the prize sent a video crew to document some of her work, they witnessed a situation so tense and frightening that they feared Cáceres wouldn’t live to receive the recognition in April. They provided her with a grant to beef up her security detail.
Five men, including two brothers suspected of bursting into Cáceres’ home early on March 3 and shooting her as she lay in bed, have been arrested. Family members and environmentalists across the world have condemned the slaying and accused the Honduran government of doing little to seek justice. They charge that there are more culprits than the men who pulled the trigger, and have pushed the government to find anyone who might have helped plan and finance the killers.
This is typical of quests for justice when activists are killed. “They’re just not doing what we think police should do,” said Grahame Russell, director of Rights Action, a non-profit group that funds community development and human rights workers in Guatemala and Honduras. “The state is playing a very specific and direct role in empowering various economic sectors” and looking the other way to move projects along when killings occur, he said.
Leaders in industry, government and other technology thought leaders have been announced as speakers at Nigeria’s largest tech event, TechPlus2016, holding next month in Lagos.
TechPlus2016 is holding July 21-23, 2016 at the Eko Hotels Conference Centre, Lagos, Nigeria
TechPlus 2016, the second edition of Nigeria’s largest tech event, is a gathering of everything technology providing a robust tripartite tech experience through its conference, exhibition and gaming structures while serving as a platform for knowledge sharing, networking and marketplace for consumers and businesses, with its dedicated website on www.techplus.ng.
TechPlus 2016 will also promote technology thought leadership where leaders in business and government to exchange ideas and share expert insights on key technology issues shaping and defining the ways we live, work and play.
Tunji Adeyinka, Managing Director of Connect Marketing Limited, organisers of TechPlus 2016, announced that this year’s edition of the tech show would significantly improve on the successful pioneering edition held last year in Lagos.
“Drawn from diverse sectors and unique backgrounds, the speakers’ trail reflects the dynamics of technological evolution in the 21st century with a fine blend of both local and international experiences,” Adeyinka says.
Commenting on the TechPlus 2016, the second edition of the show, Adeyinka says, “TechPlus Conference and Expo is a place where new technology comes to life, new products are launched and innovations converge, providing manufacturers, concept generators, software and hardware companies, content developers a platform to bring their products and services to life.”
The speakers’ line-up parades a list of globally-recognised thought leaders, organisational heads, tech advocates, success serial entrepreneurs, innovators, policy makers and trend setters.
Others speakers lined up for TechPlus 2016 include Omobola Johnson, Chairperson, Alliance for Affordable Internet; Juliet Anammah, CEO of Jumia Nigeria; Alon Lits, GM Sub-Saharan Africa, Uber; Helen Anatogu CEO, Idea Hub; MoniqueWoodard, Co-Founder and Venture Partner, 500 Startups; Lola Masha, OLX Nigeria; Engr. Aliyu A. Aziz, Director General, National Identity Management Commission (NIMC); Folabi Esan, Director, Adlevo; Olaoluwa Samuel-Biyi, Co-Founder, SureGifts.
Others include Professor Joan Enric Ricart, Professor of Economics and Strategic Management and Head of IESE’s Strategic Management Department; Dr Vincent Olatunji Acting DG, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA); Josep Ramon Ferrer, Former Smart City Director &Deputy CIO (Barcelona City Council); Rodney Williams Founder, LISNR; Karthik Noornie, Olam Group; Vytas Paukštys, CEO, Eskimi and Kamran Elahian, Chairman &Co-Founder of Global Catalyst Partners.
Primed as the “main platform for new innovations and products to be introduced to consumers and businesses,” TechPlus is organised by Connect Marketing Services and has MTN Nigeria as headline sponsor. Other partners include Samsung, LASAA, IBST Media, Lenovo, Jumia, Stanbic IBTC Bank, Megaletrics (operators of Beat FM, Classic FM and Naija FM), Terragon, and AMC (African Movie Channel).
The Federal Government has unveiled a new debt management strategy to run from 2016 to 2019 with a marginal increase in external borrowing, increased commitment to capital projects execution and long as against short term borrowing.
Dr. Abraham Nwankwo, head of the DMO. Photo credit: newsexpressngr.com
Director General of the Debt Management Office (DMO), Dr. Abraham Nwankwo, revealed the three-year debt management strategy on Monday in Abuja.
According to Nwankwo, the new Debt Management Strategy approved by the Federal Executive Council last Wednesday is aimed at economy recovery and diversification.
The DMO boss explained that the focus of the new initiative is to develop a debt management strategy that would ensure that in the face of macroeconomic and other financial constraints, the cost and risk profile of the public debt portfolio remains within acceptable limit over time.
He reiterated that the new Debt Management Strategy is in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s vision to generate maximum employment, reduce poverty and increase the living standard of Nigerians.
Dr. Nwankwo further stated that, for this to be effectively achieved, the government is making positive efforts in diversifying the economy as against the backdrop of structural collapse in oil prices and oil revenue.
He said: “The Debt Management Strategy we are going to pursue over the next four years, takes into account the fact that for now Nigeria’s public debt portfolio is dominated by domestic debt.
“After the Paris and London Club exits between 2004 and 2006, the country took a deliberate decision to develop its domestic bond market and to do most of the public borrowing from domestic sources so as to develop the domestic bond market, that objective has been sufficiently achieved.
“And therefore taking into account that external financing sources are on the average cheaper than domestic sources, it becomes more necessary to slant more of the borrowing in favour of external sources.
“Therefore one of the major elements of this strategy is that over the medium, term we will strive to remix the public debt portfolio from 84% domestic and 16% external to 60% domestic and 40% external.
“In addition taking into account other factors, the fact that over the next four years public borrowing proceeds will be devoted to capital expenditure an element of the strategy is to ensure that we remix the current status of about 31% short-term and 69% long-term to a maximum of short-term 25% and the minimum of long-term 75%.
“So we are remixing between external and domestic and we are also remixing within the domestic, between short and long-term.”
Justifying the decision to remix in favour of external debt, he said the country would be able to achieve cheaper cost of funds, lower debt servicing and avoid the risk of crowding out the private sector from accessing the domestic market, adding that the private sector is still expected to play the lead role to compliment government’s effort.
While dismissing concerns on government’s decision to focus on external borrowing in a country currently facing foreign exchange constraints and harsh macroeconomic environment, he stressed that the new strategy is the best for the Nigerian economy as the government is presently making sustained efforts on diversifying the economy, noting that in the next five to seven years’ export proceeds accrued to the economy will be more and our exchange rate will be favourable.
While encouraging Nigerians that the future will be sustainable, the DMO boss further stated that the citizens should take advantage of the current challenges as a stepping stone to actualize their vision and achieve their dreams.
“One of the questions that will naturally arise and which many of you have asked us, has to do with the challenge of foreign exchange constraints,” Nwankwo said.
“At this point in time our exchange rate is not very favourable and our reserves are not as buoyant as they used to be and people are raising the question while would you go for external borrowing when you have foreign exchange constraints.
“However a closer look at the issue shows that the strategy the government has chosen is still the optimum strategy and the secret to arriving at that conclusion is simply to differentiate between a short-term static situation and a long-term dynamic situation.
“Of course if we are simply focused on the challenges we have currently there will be undue concerns about our ability to service external debt, however if you take into account that everything we are doing now are for the purpose of diversifying our economy in a sustained manner, so that in the next 5-7 years we will be exporting a variety of processed and primary products.
“We have all it takes in terms of variety of opportunities in agriculture and in solid mineral for example.
“The efforts being made by the government and private sector is to ensure that many of the products we now import will be provided locally, such as rice, sugar, flower, wheat, fruit juice, we can produce in abundance to satisfy our domestic needs and also have surplus to export.
“Then you will appreciate that in the next 5-7 years with Nigerians working hard and in a focused manner there is no doubt that our exchange rate should be more favourable as the years go by and our reserve will be more buoyant.
“So thinking in term of medium to long-term is a strategy is about right, because we are not bugged down by our current decision, rather we are inspired by where we must be.”
Nwankwo was upbeat that in the next few years there will be significant improvement in employment generation, poverty reduction and living standard of the people, adding that as part of the new strategy, the DMO will develop new products particularly the Federal Government saving bond and also diversify the sources of raising funds domestically.
Minister of Environment, Amina Mohammed, has called on Nigerians not to panic over the issue of Genetically Modified Organism (GMO). She said on Monday in a statement that, presently, no GMOs are officially grown in the country.
“What we have approval are for field trials. All the GMOs in Nigeria officially approved are under experimental fields; the insect resistant cotton for commercial release will still be subjected to further processes for the next two years,” she was quoted as saying in the statement endorsed by Isiaka Yusuf, Director of Press in the Federal Ministry of Environment (FME).
According to her, the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA), established in 2015 under the FME was charged to, among others, ensure proper regulation of modern biotechnological activities and genetically modified organisms so as to protect the lives of Nigerians. She adds that, with the Act in place, Nigeria has taken laudable strides in order to adopt the necessary legal biosafety framework and policy, bearing in mind that if the country gets it right, it will guide other African countries.
The minister states that the quest for Nigeria’s biotechnological advancement dates back to 2001 when it adopted a National Biotechnology Policy and subsequently established the National Biotechnology Development Agency, adding that over 20 research institutes, private biotechnology firms and universities are also players in the biotechnology sector.
Her words: “The Agency is not working alone, as it is partnering with critical stakeholders such as the Nigerian Customs, the Nigerian Civil Defence Corps (NCDC), the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), the Ministry of Justice, Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service, National Seed Council, science and regulatory based institutions, the New Partnership for Africa Development (NEPAD) and African Biosafety Network of Expertise (ABNE).
“The NBMA has the onerous task of ensuring that potential impacts of the GMO on human or animal health, the environment and the socio-economic effects are carefully weighed and the risk assessment fully carried out before being released.”
While describing the concerns on GMOs expressed by the public as legitimate, she discloses that FME, in collaboration with NBMA, is organising an experts meeting, involving civil society groups, national agencies and international organisations to address all concerns expressed, with a view to clarifying Nigeria’s position on the use of GMOs.
She enjoins the citizenry to cooperate with the Federal Government in its quest to diversify the Nigerian economy for the present and future generations, adding: “Nigerians should be rest assured of the protection of their health and environment by the National Biosafety Management Agency.”
Scotland has exceeded the level of its 2020 target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 42% six years early, Climate Change Secretary Roseanna Cunningham has said.
The latest climate change statistics show Scotland’s emissions, for reporting against targets, have fallen by 12.5% year on year to 41.9 million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2014. This is a reduction of 45.8% from the 1990 baseline.
The figures published last week also show that Scotland continues to outperform the rest of the UK as a whole, with a 39.5% drop in Scottish source emissions between 1990 and 2014 compared to the UK’s 33% reduction over the same period. Scotland is also one of the leading countries in Western Europe for reducing emissions.
Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform said: “Scotland is making outstanding progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These statistics show that we not only met the annual 2014 emissions reduction target but also exceeded the level of our world-leading 2020 target for a 42% reduction, six years ahead of schedule.
“The reduction in residential emissions in 2014 may have been due to people turning down their heating. This underlines that small individual actions, if repeated on a large scale, can have a big impact in tackling climate change
“This is an especially important time for climate change, in light of the international agreement reached in Paris last December and it is great news that Scotland continues to show ambition and demonstrate the progress that can be made.
“We will continue to rise to the challenge and the First Minister has already confirmed that the Scottish Government plans to establish a new and more testing 2020 target. We are not complacent and we will continue to take action and encourage others to do their bit to tackle climate change.”
Ms Cunningham was speaking on a visit to the Harlaw Hydro community renewable energy project.
Chair of Harlaw Hydro, Martin Petty, said: “Harlaw Hydro is a cooperative set up for the benefit of the community. It was created in order to build and operate a hydro-electric scheme using the water from Harlaw Reservoir. When the reservoir is full the scheme, which was initiated by, funded by and managed by the community, generates enough green energy to power up to 150 houses. Climate change affects us all, and I am pleased that we are able to make a contribution to Scotland’s efforts to tackle it.”
Europe’s largest electric vehicle rally, which brought 75 teams from 13 nations, entered its finishing phase at Geneva, Switzerland over the weekend on the Place des Nations, part of a 1,300km traverse from Bremerhaven, Germany with a simple objective: zero emissions for 1.5 degrees.
Michael Moller, Director-General of United Nations Office at Geneva said the world’s leaders agreed to pursue efforts to limit global temperature increase to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, recognising that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change. He said: “And I expect that parking so many electric cars in the formation of ‘1.5’ at the gates of the UN in Geneva will help to remind the world of this commitment.”
1.5C car formation at the Place des Nations, Geneva2016 WAVE Rally on the Place des Nations in front of the UN European headquarters in GenevaLouis Palmer, founder of the World Advanced Vehicle Expedition (WAVE) and UNEP Champion of the Earth said the WAVE rally is the advance ripple of a gathering tide that is transforming the world’s automobile industry. “There is no reason why every car cannot already be electric, zero emissions and renewably powered,” he said. “Electric vehicles are here, they are here to stay, they are fun, attractive and the obvious choice. They are the future.”Elayne Whyte, the Ambassador of Costa Rica to the United Nations representing the Climate Vulnerable Forum, said the Paris Agreement has the greatest potential for improving the enjoyment of fundamental human rights. “Keeping warming to a minimum-to below 1.5 degrees-won’t simply deliver safety and prosperity, it will also deliver justice,” she said, commenting that in Costa Rica “we are making efforts for the reduction of emissions in critical sectors such as transport, our Government is implementing economic and fiscal incentives, such the programme for the purchase of efficient vehicles (PAVE) which are part of the Project Law of incentives and promotion for electric transportation.”Philippe Ramet of the Permanent Mission of France to the United Nations, said an agenda of solutions emerged from the climate change negotiations in Paris. “What we have here today is a clear demonstration of real action the was inspired by the Paris Agreement.”Wolfgang Jamann, Secretary-General and CEO of CARE International, a partner of the #1o5C campaign, highlighted its work with the poorest and most vulnerable communities that are also the hardest hit by climate change impacts. “The 1.5 degrees limit is a Paris Agreement message of hope, and we call on governments to urgently translate that hope into action for a future free of poverty and harmful greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.Luc Barthassat, Conseiller d’état chargé du département de l’environnement, des transports et de l’agricultureMaria Luisa Silva, Director of the UNDP Office in Geneva
