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The Deputy Vice-Chancellor Administration, University of Abuja, Prof Sani Mohammed Adam, SAN has blamed unemployment in the country on the neglect of the environment.
Prof Adam who was speaking at a lunched of a book title “Environmentalism and Emerging Trends in Petroleum Industry Related Litigation” and the 55th birthday of the author, Clement Oji Chinaka in Abuja urge the federal government to empower agencies with the regulatory powers to check such happening in the country.
He said agitations and anxiety seen in some parts of the country are avoidable if the environment is properly managed.
“That is what is causing a lot of problems because if we don’t manage our environment very well, the tendency is that there would be unemployment, crass poverty agitation, and anxiety. You can imagine we have this oil here but we need to go abroad to refine the products and bring back and every day the environment is polluted because of the activities and there are health implications, the economic impacts is very high, social and cultural impact, everything is done unabated.
“So it is time the government gets serious about cleaning the environment, especially in the oil and gas area. We have to make Nesrea a regulatory agency, improve their powers to go there and ensure that the entire environment is clean, and to ensure that operations are in conformity with all the standards of environmental protection because the impact of climate change is very devastating.
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“We have seen how the effect can be on the water, agriculture, as well as the entire agricultural chain, hunger, poverty, and, can also create conflict. The impact of climate change can be seen in many ways, like the issue in Borno, the ethnic clashes in Northcentral is all about competition for scarce resources and if the resources continue to be scarce, then Nigeria can’t be able to handle it because of hunger can bring a lot of implosions”.
The University don who was the book reviewer added that “the book is about environmentalism and environmental litigation in Nigeria, it talks about the oil and gas industry, downstream and upstream, issues dealings with pipelines the whole business in the oil and gas industry.
“The book is particular about environmentalism, that is a passion for the protection and conservation of the environment, the ecosystem, biodiversity and issues bothering on climate change and matter of its sustainability, how we can make our environment better on the face of industrialisation, we can balance industrialisation and environmental protection we call it intergenerational equity, that sustaining the environment for posterity. The book is very good because it talks about how people can go to court and demands their right especially those in the Niger Delta area that are suffering from lots of environmental degradation, gas flaring, and other oil-related activities”.
Also speaking, the author of the book, Mr. Clement Oji Chinaka Esq said environmentalism is everywhere in the country, stressing that the government must strengthen the regulatory agency to always do the needful.
He lamented over the situation where the regulatory agency has to rely on the IOCs to be mobilised to the site on an investigation, adding that there is a need for proper funding of such agencies.
“Environmentalism is with us here and everybody has a feeling of it and is a matter that affects everybody. Like we have advocated, the communities feel short-changed because they’re not carried along and each time they challenge the status quo and the government is not doing much particularly in the area of the enforcement of the law.
“The laws are not enforced, the regulatory agency is not properly funded and the International recognitions (IOC) are quite strong when it comes to issues of enforcement, they’re quite strong, and so you can imagine where an enforcement agency will be relying on IOCs to provide logistics to go into the field to check and all of that. We must finance the agency.
“Some of the communities, their road is not good. The government should leave the business and concentrate on policy and administration, the government is investing more energy on what they shouldn’t get involved with”.
