Great Green Wall Initiative Is Emergency Rescue Operation-VP Shettima

Nigeria’s Vice President, Senator Kashim Shettima, on Thursday, appealed to Nigerians and stakeholders to see the Great Green Wall Initiative as an Emergency Rescue Operation.

VP Shettima declared that the cost of not completing it was threatening the collective existence of the people.

The Vice President was speaking at the inaugural Great Green Wall Day Celebration at the State House Conference Centre, Abuja, where he delivered the keynote address.

He called on all stakeholders to invest in the actualization of the transformative initiative while highlighting the need to prioritize the project.

“We inherited a dream that we can’t afford to relegate because doing so is not an option.

“Our predecessors were aware of the danger ahead, and the burden is upon us now to pursue their mission as life-saving mission, and we must carry all stakeholders along to achieve this,”he stated.

VP Shettima recalled that President Bola Tinubu promised to complete the Great Green Wall in his campaign manifesto and added that marking the day demonstrated the commitment of the administration to initiative as an act of self-preservation.

Explaining that the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and Sahel began in 2007 “to prevent the ecological nightmare looming over us,” Senator Shettima described the project as “a daring yet practical intervention to save humanity and rebuild the world to accommodate our desires, to keep our lands fertile, our silos full, and our agrarian economies booming once again.”

Vice President Shettima said that Nigeria took up the challenge to partake in the Pan-African mission to save the world.

“This has been prioritized by our policy makers, so that by 2015, the National Agency for the Great Green Wall (NAGGW) was enacted by an enabling Act of Parliament,” the Vice President stated.

Largest living structure.

Describing the Great Green Wall as “the largest living structure on the planet,” as envisioned by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, the Director-General of the National Agency for the Great Green Wall, Yusuf Bukar, said the initiative stretches 8,000km across Africa.

He said the Great Green Wall would usher in a new era of sustainability and economic growth.

“It was launched in 2007 by the African Union as the game-changing African-led initiative that aims to restore the continent’s degraded landscapes and transform millions of life in the Sahel.

“The initiative is being implemented across 22 African countries and has been uplifting thousands of communities across the continent.

“It has also brought together African countries and international partners under the leadership of the African Union Commission and the Pan-African Agency for the Great Green Wall.”

Bukar said that Nigeria has pursued the objective of the African Union on the Great Green Wall since 2015 with the aim of transforming Nigeria’s dry lands by the agency, through the National Agency for the Great Green Wall, under the Ministry of Environment.

According to him, the agency has carried out its mandate through afforestation, reforestation, provision of alternative sources of cooking and energy use and has also made progress in mitigating the impact of climate change in the frontline states.

He listed the frontline states as Bornu, Yobe, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi, Bauchi, Gombe and Adamawa.

“It has done so by sequestering carbon dioxide in our shutter bed plantation, woodland plantation, orchard plantation, gum Arabic plantation, indigenous trees plantation, social forestry, farm forestry, institutional planting and by large scale, restoration of forest lands,” Bukar said.

He said the agency has also intervened directly by providing and empowering women and the vulnerable living within the Great Green Wall Corridor.

Highlight of the event was the demonstration of tree planting by Nigeria’s First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, and Vice President Shettima.

Confidence Okwuchi