• Says Buhari To Flag-off Ogoni Clean Up Projects
The Federal Government has blamed the menace of deforestation in the country on those it describes as “powerful interests” who are behind the scene in providing protection for loggers that produce charcoal for sale.
This came to fore as the President Muhammadu Buhari administration is pursuing the target to plant 25 million trees by the year 2030 through afforestation policy.
The Minister of Environment, Mohammed Abdullahi, made the declaration when he appeared on the Ministerial Media Briefing anchored by the Presidential Communications Team at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Joined by the Minister of State for Environment, Udi Odum at the briefing, Abdullahi revealed that each time the Federal Government tried to move against the menace to save the environment, there was a push back at the subnational level on the ground that the trees belong to the states.
Fielding a question on the menace of tree felling for charcoal production, he said: “No other administration has tackled this issue like the Buhari administration. The challenge we are facing under deforestation and charcoal is engaging Nigerian Governors Forum because of the Land Use Act.
“The Federal Government is just a policy provider and doesn’t have that control over state government land to work out a modality, which Kaduna State government has keyed in properly.
“It has invested some hectares of land to plant and we are working with the local governments. So, we are projecting other states will follow suit.
“What we further did to have some level of control, apart from timber legal standard, we have what we call DFTA, which is essentially to track in areas where there is so much pressure on our forests.
“After tracking it, raise red flag and then engage those communities and the state governments so that a solution can be brought and have a level of arrest of the continuous challenge to our forest.
“What we did not tell you, is that the activities of the people in the charcoal business, with all due respect, are being supported by a number of powerful people in the sub-national level. And if we try to do some level of enforcement, they will tell you, we own this territory, you are federal government and you cannot enforce your rule and policy on us.
“So, that is part of the challenge in terms of controlling these activities. But in spite of this, the task force is still there, going after some of them on ad-hoc basis, trying to find out who and who is involved, who licensed who. We are doing our best to curb the situation.”
The Minister further disclosed concluded plans by the FG for the next stage of the Ogoni clean up exercise, adding that President Buhari will Flag off the next stage of the clean up, including the hospital center of excellence project, amongst others in the next few weeks.
On the efforts aimed at taming environmental degradation, he stated that the Ministry developed the National Drought and Desertification Policy and National Drought Preparedness Plan, as well as engaged in global effort on Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) by 2030 with the completion of target setting of 15.3 per cent per year.
Others include participation in the AFR100 Initiative (African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative) which aims at planting 100 million trees in Africa, an initiatives, which he said “has restored over 6,191,363 hectares of degraded forest land in the following states – Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Jigawa, Katsina, Bauchi, Gombe, Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi and Kano among others.
“In keeping with the promise of Mr. President to plant 25million trees by the year 2030, the Ministry coordinated the planting of about 20 million trees in the country, while also establishing cottage apiary for youth empowerment.”
