Migration: stakeholders restates support to address climate change challenges
Rahila Lassa, Abuja
The Nigerian Government says it’s committed to addressing the challenge of managing climate change for a better climate condition.
Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq stated this at the 2022 Edition of the National Migration Dialogue in commemoration of the International Migrants Day organised by the National Commission for Refugees Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons in collaboration with the International Organisation for Migration,in Abuja Nigeria.
The Minister who was represented by the Deputy Director, Disaster Management in the Ministry, Abubakar Suleiman said government is currently spending 9% of the GDP on projects directly addressing climate change.
According to the Minister, migration is a constantly evolving and cross-cutting issue that has important developmental implications for both origin and destination countries.
She noted that in 2021, Nigeria became the first country in Africa to design a detailed Energy Transition Plan, with a view to delivering universal access to energy by 2030, and will continue to take decisive steps to mitigate impact of climate change.
She, however, emphasised that climate change is not an isolated phenomenon and every country has to play its role in order to secure the world’s climate future.
” In 2022, Nigeria has experienced devastating floods, which have affected no fewer than 33 states, displacing at least 1.4 million people, while destroying thousands of hectares of farmland and causing about 600 deaths. Climate events such as these have been on the increase in recent years and the need to accelerate adaptation to these issues cannot be overemphasized”.
She further stated that, at the Federal and State levels, Nigeria has adopted various adaptation techniques such as the reclaimation of the land lost to coastal erosion in Lagos and the Kano Relocation Project, where at least 800 households residing in flood-prone areas were relocated to safer areas.
” Climate events such as these have been on the increase in recent years and the need to accelerate adaptation to these issues cannot be overemphasized. I expect that this dialogue would assess these techniques and also identify new methods which can be adopted to strengthen our resilience in dealing with climate events as well as better manage displacement and human mobility issues”.
The Federal Commissioner, National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons, Imaan Suleiman-Ibrahim said the 2022 theme, Accelerating Climate Adaptation in Displacement and Human mobility in Nigeria is aptly designed to interrogate the impact of Climate Change and Climate events on various communities across Nigeria, as well as existing Adaptation efforts by Government and the local population to cope with these events.
” The ongoing desertification in the northeast, erosion in the southeast and the ubiquitous flooding, has led to displacement and increase in the migration of Nigerians from their habitual places of residence to other parts of the country and across international boundaries. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, reports that between 2008 and the end of 2021, displacement in Nigeria as a result of climate events and disasters amounts to 6.1 million, as a result of 131 climate disasters experienced during the period, which eclipses the figures for displacement due to conflict, that stands at 4.4 million”.
Suleiman-Ibrahim noted with optimism that although a lot has been done by the Nigerian Government to mitigate the climate change event on the population, more can still be done by stakeholders.
It is therefore my hope that collectively, we join can hands and with the support of International Partners, come up with adaptation Programmes to reduce the impact of climate events and their consequences, including displacements and human mobility of the most vulnerable in the society.
It is expected that this dialogue will assess Government interventions in response to these challenges, with a view to charting a course towards an all-of- society approach at addressing the impact of climate change.
