‘We have tampered with nature beyond limit’

How is climate change affecting Nigeria?It is affecting Nigeria seriously. If you really want to see practically how it is affecting Nigeria; go to Kano State and see how desert is encroaching, before you know it it will get to Abuja.Go to eastern states and see what erosion is doing there and government is spending […]

How is climate change affecting Nigeria?
It is affecting Nigeria seriously. If you really want to see practically how it is affecting Nigeria; go to Kano State and see how desert is encroaching, before you know it it will get to Abuja.
Go to eastern states and see what erosion is doing there and government is spending heavily in maintain roads, it’s a problem.
Apart from that, look at our weather condition, we are still trying to relax a little bit now because of hamattan season after it we will get to a situation where we will have 40 degrees and above that. I know it is affecting us seriously, so the earlier we start doing something the better for us.

But not all understand what climate change is all about?
It is only a senseless person that will feel everything is okay with our climate. Everything is not fine, our weather is operating at the extreme, we have extreme cold, extreme rainfall, extreme hot season and it is so because we have decided to abuse the free gift given to us by God. Instead of protecting it, doing good steward, we have decided to abuse it, we have tampered with the nature beyond what we should do, that is why we are suffering the consequences today.
The problem we have with our climate is something that affects all of us, it affects me as a woman, as a religious person, as a catholic and as a citizen of Nigeria and of the world. The question is what do we do and how do we help the situation because I keep telling everybody that is not enough to blame anyone or the international community or multinational companies or our government or blame ourselves, but what are we going to do to address the situation.
As a catholic of which I represent so much and as a woman of interfaith, I believe that we can do a lot in addressing the situation. It is not good enough to complain or to say prayer and go away. My bible told me that prayer without work is useless so, we have to back it up with action.
What we can do to help the situation is to first of all get everybody involved, begin to create awareness, sensitise people to know the danger involved. Let everybody know what we have caused for ourselves, the damage we have done to mother earth so that all hands must be on deck. This is the area we are working much on, we are trying to create awareness in our churches and also for people in the society.

How far has your organisation gone in making people to be aware of the dangers of climate change?
We are using the platform of the Nigeria Women of Faith Network (NWFN) to spread the message. We have Muslims and people from other denominations, so it helps us to pass the message to almost everybody. Our awareness creation is more about the youth, we tell them about the problem and what we can do; we also go beyond that to back it up with more concrete action.
In 2010 we started the programme tagged: “Planting for peace and development in Nigeria,” the Catholic church in Abuja organized it in collaboration with inter-faith youths, we set a day aside to plant trees at the streets of Abuja, along Sani Abacha street and others too. This activity was used to pass message to people.

What was your target for the tree planting?
Our target initially was 300 but we ended up planting over 500 trees of which, we collaborated with FCT Parks and Recreation. They helped by bringing some of the tree seedlings and we brought some from our nursery. They were happy with what we were doing that day they were there with us.
250 youths and women participated from WFN and Inter- Faith Youths, both Catholic and women from other denomination came together, for us it was a great event because through that avenue we showed people that we have been living together and working together and will keep working together and that was the time the insurgency in Nigeria was at its peak, despite all odds we came out together and planted the trees.   

How else are you addressing the issues of climate change?
We have a nursery where we grow seedlings the essence of doing that is that when we create awareness and tell people about it, some might be interested and may like to have theirs and some may not have the money to buy the seedlings, so what we normally do is that when any organisation indicates interest in the seedlings, we give them free of charge to go and plant.
We have given about five high schools, including Islamic schools. Our nursery is for everybody and all we are fighting for is to protect our environment. We have schools and parishes coming to collect seedlings for free.

How many seedlings do you have in the nursery?
We have about 7,000 to 8,000 seedlings there, though some of the seedlings are dead due to neglect from the person taking care of them but we are planning to replace them.
We had another project in October 2012, we decided to go beyond planting and seedlings, so we started encouraging people to go on solar instead of using fossil fuels that is one of the causes of the problem we have today.
Today in the Catholic Arch Diocese of Abuja we have not less than five Parishes and four convents on solar energy. Though solar is very expensive and many cannot afford it, our department and the Cardinal as the little we can, still encourages people to go on solar for the aim is to protect the environment because when we use solar, it is less harmful to our environment and health. It is expensive at the point of buying it but at a long run you will understand that it is cheaper for you.

Apart from the encoura-gement you give, do you subsidize the solar energy to enable more people own them?
No, we don’t subsidize but we got an organisation that can help to subsidize but we have not really seen the subsidization they promised because the cost is still very high. The Catholic Church is not subsidizing at the moment because we have so much problems we need to tackle.
Apart from encouraging people on using solar, we had training on how to maintain and install solar because we have few solar workers around. We partnered with an Irish Embassy two years ago and they agreed to accept us to organize the training. We organized training for 25 youths in Abuja on how to maintain and repair inverters and how they can create employment for themselves and, presently, some of them are engaged in the solar installation and repair business. They are writing proposals to schools and organisation on installing inverters for them. So we have gone beyond mounting solar to training the youths because we believed that to sustain it, we need more man power and to get it. We have to train the youth because most of them are unemployed and this is the best way of giving them employment and at the same time saving the environment.

What do you advice should be done?
My advice is that government should find ways of helping serious organisations that are into this, they should find a way of partnering with them, especially those that have the capacity and the manpower.
And for the poor people, it is difficult to tell a poor woman in the village not to fell down a tree when she cannot afford to buy kerosene. So government should make it easier by subsidizing things and make it easier for everyone to use solar and help our climate. If the government doesn’t help there is a limit to what we can do as faith based orgainsation. Government should take up its responsibilities and help us and also assist people to help our environment.

Nigeria attends the Global Climate Change Summit every year and at the end nothing is done, what have you got to say about that?
Government should begin to show interest in the things that matter, things that affect our lives, our environment, our community, it should be taken serious, I know we have the resources.
People should not fold their hands and wait for government, there is something you can do as a citizen, as a community member because the community is yours and all of us are the government. The little you think you can do to help save our environment please, go ahead and do. That’s why we started the tree planting stuff because we know an ordinary man can open ground and plant a tree, water it and it will grow, so let us take up our responsibility in this area, not just government because government might be doing it.
I also urge my fellow citizens to take this matter seriously, in the matter of Climate Change all hands must be on deck, it is neither a government affair only nor community affair only, it should be a joint effort.
The community members should do what is in their power to do without waiting for the government. Plant a tree around your environment, ask yourself if you have any tree around you and if not, make it a point of duty to plant one.
Do you live in a place where we have gully, go out and take sands start filling it up and take care of it.