In a situation that could easily inspire a Naija comedy punch line, soldiers in Australia are busy delivering sandbags to homes in order to “clean their crocodile-induced tears”. In Nigeria, it is the other way round – the military are the initiators of the “crocodile tears”.
But jokes apart, Australia is not having it kindly from Mother Nature even as you read this piece. In a shocking once-in-a-century weather event, record rainfall in the Australian coastal city of Townsville, triggered devastating floods. With the deluge came unexpected visitors from the animal kingdom: crocodiles and snakes, who are now crawling about the streets like emergency citizens.
A record 1.16 metres (3.8feet) of rain has fallen in the area in the last one week, forcing the opening of the city’s dam to prevent the Ross River from breaking its banks. The Australian army has been deployed to deliver around 70,000 sandbags to households and help rescue residents who have been forced onto their rooftops by the history-making flooding. According to officials, up to 20,000 homes are at risk if the rainfall continues. Already, around 16,000 properties are without power and the city’s airport, courts and schools have been forced to close.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology said the heavy rain could continue until the end of this week, and some areas could expect more than a year’s worth of rain before conditions ease; while also warning that more severe weather could whip up tornadoes and destructive winds in the days ahead.
In my opinion, the Australian event should make us sit up and review our climate adaptability model because of two reasons. First, last year, we had a precarious weather event that was very reminiscent of the infamous 2012 nationwide flooding emergency in our country. Second, a new study released last year in Europe (Laboratory for Ocean Physics and Remote Sensing of the University of Brest and at the University of Southampton) stated that the next five years, 2018-2022, could be much hotter than expected based on current global warming.
This has a similar tone to another scientific proclamation by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which says that 2018 is on pace to be the fourth hottest year on record – only three other years have been hotter: 2015, 2016 and 2017. Interestingly, 2018 started on a cooler note, so few observers expected it to be as hot as it finally turned out to become. Temperatures on the Earth’s surface in the first half of 2018 were lower than over the same period for the three previous years. This was due, in part, to a moderate La Niña event during late 2017 and the first half of 2018.
We are already seeing our own crocodiles in the form of increased mosquito onslaughts. It has been proved that there is a link between mosquito prevalence and global warming. We have also experienced heatwaves, especially in the North, when snakes and other reptiles seek refuge in human abodes. In these times too, there are movements of scorpions and poisonous spiders.
Just like in Australia, the streets of the waterside shacks of Lokoja, Anam, and the Delta were always crawling with amphibians and virulent debris whenever the floods came calling. So, we are not strangers to climate-induced infestation.
However, unlike Australia, what we have refused to embrace are those methods and innovations that could help us change the emerging uncertain circumstances. The heat wave that has become an annual bugaboo to the Australian people has also made the nation come up with its own framework to adapt. The country deployed a combined approach including behaviour change, dwelling modification and improved air conditioning selection to effect household level adaptation across vulnerable regions, thus reducing the risk of heat-related deaths and household energy costs.
That was also how the country recently announced a pioneering wave farm off the city of Perth that started generating electricity using abundant wave surges. In comparison to other renewables, wave energy is attractive as it is a relatively dense energy source, and easy to predict. With this, there comes a potential explosion in wave power, looking forward.
Now, what can our own government tell us that it is doing which is innovative in tackling annual flooding and other ecological exigencies aside from the usual NEMA money pumped into the crisis zones, to be immediately squandered by government functionaries? What long term plans do we have in decongesting the lagoons of Lagos and bilious bowels of Aba in order to turn them to ecological assets?
In as much as we have a semblance of agricultural revival in the North through the government’s Anchor Borrowers’ programme, we have yet to witness any aspect of the programme that addresses sustainability issues in a region that is heavily impacted by climate change. For instance, the issues of organic fertiliser processing and integrated seed research, which are fundamental to any food security thrust, are totally not in the picture.
Sadly, the universities and research institutions that usually pilot such efforts, are not even in session!
They are grossly unequipped, underfunded, understaffed and unmotivated. So, they are on strike, doing all they can to attract the attention of the political leaders whose attention span will soon expire after the general election. Ironically, the so-called security votes these politicians unilaterally carve out for themselves from our commonwealth on a monthly basis would have been more than enough to set up the required food security research networks, but, alas, they never agree that food security is part of the “security” to be addressed by their “security vote”!
Funny enough, one of the governors, the one of Imo State, was considerate enough to “donate to his people” some percentage of his own security largesse at the beginning of his term. But I learnt that he later, quietly, withdrew the benevolent gesture.
I recently interviewed a lecturer in one of the country’s federal universities because the researcher was involved in a personal research to find an alternative organic fertiliser to the much celebrated Neem extract. It must be pointed out that the Neem tree research in Nigeria was spearheaded and funded by the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation.
The lecturer blew my mind with a revelation: The (foreign) funds for research are not available, and in the few cases they are accessed, university bureaucracy ensures through institutional corruption that the monies that finally enter the hands of the primary researchers are so meagre that they are almost useless. My source told me that you can get as low as 10 per cent of the released research grant at the end of the day. This is unacceptable. In my view, it is a stumbling block in the institutional research and development sector. No nation can get to the next level in this way.
The irony of life is that the best natural resources are irreplaceable while the worst predators are self-replicating. A vivid example is the situation in a certain part of the popular Imo River, running through Imo and Abia states, where sand miners have so depleted the sands of the river beds that they now have to dredge, many feet down, with boats; whereas the river never runs short of deluge of fat crustaceans on its banks during overflows.
So, my prayer is that crocodiles never find their way to the banks of Imo River. And if they must visit us, may they first appear in the homes of unpatriotic politicians!
END
Be the first to comment