The Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Climate Change, who also doubles as the Vice-President of Globe Nigeria, Honourable Samuel I. Onuigbo has hinted that the much-awaited Climate Change Bill would be passed into law before the end of the year.
The lawmaker representing Ikwuano/Umuahia North/South Federal Constituency of Abia state stated this in a press conference held weekend in Abuja.
Hon. Onuigbo who fingered climate change as one of the leading causes of the herdsmen-farmer crisis and Boko Haram insurgency said greater understanding and solutions is being proffered to address the menace of change in ecological factors.
Onuigbo explained that decades ago nomadic activities were mostly found around the Lake Chad Basin which attracted other huge commercial activities including fishing and crop farming in the North-Eastern of Nigeria.
“Over the years, the cumulative effect of some human activities has provoked climate change and drastic fall of the water level and by extension, fishery and crop farming became difficult while herdsmen are left with the only alternative of migration to other regions of the country in search of greener pasture.
“While some of these former fishermen and farmers could have ignorantly or consciously found insurgency as a better means of sustenance, herdsmen became threat to their new host communities whose crops and major investments are either eating up by herds or deliberately destroy,” he said
He noted that the legal framework of Climate Change Bill has been presented to the House of Representatives and passed second reading.
According to him, the bill if passed, will provide a Legal Framework for the Mainstreaming of Climate Change Responses and Actions into Government Policy Formulation, Implementation and Establishment of the National Council on Climate Change and for Other Related Matters.
He further stated that the piece of legislation, “will expressly demonstrate our various commitments in the fight against all forms of environmental issues that are affecting the society.
“I have always reiterated that it is important for MDAs to make adequate budgetary provisions to back up our Climate Change commitments with practical and verifiable actions,” he said.
Also speaking on the need for proper curricula in centres of learning on climate change, Sam Onuigbo called on the Federal Government to reconsider the Presidential directive in reviewing the legal mandates of Nigeria’s universities of Agriculture and to maintain the original form, especially at the the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike in Abia State.
