• Says 5m trees planted so far
• Blames state governors for flooding, erosion
From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The ongoing deforestation in the country has been blamed on some powerful interests at the sub-national level who protect loggers that produce charcoal for sale.
Minister of Environment, Mohammed Abdulahi, made the disclosure at the 69th edition of the Inter-Ministerial Media Briefing organized by the Presidential Communications at the Presidential Villa,Abuja on Thursday.
According to him, each time the federal government tried to go after those behind 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 questions on felling of trees for charcoal, the minister said: “To have some level of control, apart from timber legal standard, we have what we call National Trust Fund (NATF), 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 the 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.”
Earlier, the Director General of Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria, Professor Adepoju Olusola, speaking on the Timber and Energy Standard, “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.”
Meanwhile, he said the President Muhammadu Buhari administration has so far planted 5 million trees as part of its target to plant 25 million trees by the year 2030 under its afforestation policy.
On Charles Soludo, describing Anambra as the capital of erosion in the country and what the government was doing to arrest the situation, Abdulahi said: “On Anambra being the erosion capital of Nigeria, again some of these things boils down to the nature of our federal structure.
“Part of the problem is that, initially, federal government use to intervene in states erosion matters under Ecological Fund. But the states insisted that they be given their share of the ecological funds.
“So, since then, Mr. President being a democrat, gave directives that every FAAC meeting, deductions are made and paid to states from Ecological Fund. But in spite of that, the federal government through the Ecological Fund office still intervene in states to support erosion challenges in several states.
“So as much as we want to intervene and correct some of these anomalies, we are also inhibited by funding issues. Again, that was the basis for which the federal government created NEMA so that the issues of erosion are handled in every state. There are a huge gap in the management of erosion particularly in the south East states of Anambra , Imo and Enugu.
“So we are doing our best to support them but we are also calling on the states to live up to their responsibilities and utilize those funds they get from Ecological Fund effectively, this way we can support ourselves.”
On the issue of national environmental sanitation policy, he said: “ours is to drive this policy and get the buyer in of stakeholders. Usually, what we do when we have this polices drawn up, we have what we call the validation process where the state governments, ministry of environment and agencies in charge of sanitation to jointly go through the document and implement the policy jointly.
“With all due respect state governors have politicized the process of sanitation exercise and programmes. While you find some states banning sanitation exercise and you find others instituting the exercises. So there are discordance tunes in this exercises. But again, because of the nature of our arrangement, we cannot force it down the throat of state governments but in FCT we have level of control working with the Abuja environment sanitation agency particularly has it had to do with plastic pollution in Abuja and the activities of developers because they have been trying to encroach into the Jabi Lake. I’m glad to inform you that we have form an alliance with the FCT and we are set to inspect through a joint Taskforce to those areas and see what we can do to enforce sanitation.”
Abdullahi also alleged that state governments compound the menace of flooding in their states by issuing Certificates of Occupancy for buildings without giving a thought to terrains and topographies.
The Minister said with litigation issues over, President Buhari in the next couple of days will flag off the groundbreaking of the center of excellence for remediation and that of the power project and the hospital.
He said with inhibition out of the way, the ministry is on course to deliver on President Buhari’s directives on Ogoni clean up.