All President Muhammadu Buhari’s men have made us aware of the point that their principal watches the Super Eagles. That means they’re doing their job. They shouldn’t imagine though that I mean the President should score a football goal. Maybe, if the President’s aides showed Nigerians evidence that the number one citizen did play football when he was a pupil (which would make headlines), I would give them that liberty. But this matter is much more serious than football. We need a goal, nevertheless. With regard to Lake Chad. The dignified survival of some 40 million people in that region depends on it.
Every Nigerian is aware of Lake Chad’s existence, or its rapidly declining existence. If we don’t learn about the lake in the classroom or see its yam tuber-like shape on map, we have heard for decades what successive Nigerian governments have promised regarding it. The current administration is doing the same, especially with the international conference on Lake Chad that Abuja hosted in February.
The President wasn’t mentioning Lake Chad for the first time during that conference. Back in 2015, during his inauguration, he had said the Nigerian economy was in deep trouble and it would require careful management to bring it round as well as to tackle the immediate challenges confronting us, namely, Boko Haram, among others. He had never disengaged the insurgents from one of the reasons the economy became what it was. What the North-East has been contributing to the national economy has vanished. Poverty increased in that corridor, and instead of Nigeria gaining, it was expending resources to combat insurgents in the North-East as well as take care of the helpless and displaced millions.
“Boko Haram is a typical example of small fires causing large fires,” Buhari had added on May 29, 2015. He further noted that “an eccentric and unorthodox preacher with a tiny following was given posthumous fame and following by his extrajudicial murder at the hands of the police.” Tiny following. But the damage is much. How did the Boko Haram gain even the tiny following? Poverty. (I had explained the nexus in one of my pieces). Boko Haram once provided succour for the deprived at the time it operated peacefully like every other religious sect in Borno State. Even when it became violent, the money it paid to recruits was enough to draw fighters from different countries in the region. We still haven’t come up with a countermeasure to this, and we have to. It’s here the latest conference on Lake Chad has its significance.
The Lake Chad Basin, shared by Algeria, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Libya, Niger, Nigeria and the Sudan, is about eight per cent of the size of the African continent, providing direct and indirect support to a population of about 40 million people. Its surface area has shrunk from 25,000 square kilometers to just 2,500 sq.kms, roughly 10 per cent of the initial size. The effect of this on our people who depend on the lake for livelihood is better imagined. One outcome is poverty that has made working for Boko Haram for pay attractive. Now a lake that has been a source of prosperity and peace is a reason for insecurity, instability, and the loss of livelihoods.
We know Buhari has always seized every available speaking opportunity to raise awareness of the need for action to save Lake Chad. His comments regarding the economic development of Nigeria’s North-East weren’t ever complete without a mention of the importance of the lake. We also know that in the past, targets had been set by previous governments to revive Lake Chad and missed. When the President’s men informed us late 2017 that their principal was looking in the direction of the lake once more, it was added that the conference was to revitalise the basin’s ecosystem for sustainable livelihood, security and development. It was also stated that this was the first time an international conference on Lake Chad was being organised involving the six-member countries of the region. The high-level meeting was expected to have in attendance the Presidents and Heads of government of the Lake Chad Basin Commission member-states.
There were to be key partners too, coming together in hosting the conference — the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, and relevant donors including, prospectively, the African Development Bank, AfDB, the World Bank and the governments of Germany, China, Canada and the European Union. The list was impressive, offering hope. It was added that the main objective of the international conference was to create global awareness on the socio-economic and environmental challenges arising from the shrinkage of the lake, threat to livelihoods including insecurity, with a view to developing a comprehensive program for action to save the lake from extinction. Specifically, the conference was expected to discuss and develop consensus on the different options to restore Lake Chad, including the Inter-Basin Water Transfer project from the Ubangi River in Central Africa to the Lake Chad.
Moreover, experts, researchers and resource persons were expected to exchange knowledge and share information on water resources development and management in a crisis environment and to garner political and financial support for the restoration option identified for the restoration of the lake. Among the expected outcomes of the conference was a roadmap for the implementation of recommendations that should lead to the restoration of the lake; restoration of fishing and irrigated farming as a way of alleviating poverty, strengthening climate resilience in the basin, creating employment, leading to reduction of terrorist activities and increasing the revenue of the population and that of the Lake Chad basin countries.
These are things involved in the current effort that make one pay closer attention. But there are aspects too that get one concerned. One, there was none of the measures stated to be taken to replenish Lake Chad and give economic power back to our people that hadn’t been mentioned in the past. So one should worry when a reason for the latest conference was to “discuss and develop consensus on the different options to restore Lake Chad”. Discuss again the discussions of past years that have been shelved. Another expected outcome of the conference was “a road map for the implementation of the recommendations of the conference that should lead to the restoration of the lake”. Another conference. Discussions. Then more discussions to discuss road maps for implementation of what is discussed. One’s thus constrained to ask: When will the implementation start? After Lake Chad had become five per cent of the size it was in 1960?
Such is bureaucracy. It must follow its course through. For it’s the nature of these endeavours by governments. The conference has come and gone. Will something come out of this one? Member states of the Lake Chad Basin Commission expressed willingness to implement the road map for the restoration of the lake, called the Abuja Charter. They wished to take the restoration of the basin as a Pan-African project. Nigeria the host called on all member states to demonstrate high political will to save the Lake Chad region, urging them to implement integrated measures such as afforestation, biotechnology, and drop irrigation among others to minimise water evaporation from the basin. Member states looked up to the African Development Bank though to mobilise the proposed $50 billion to fund the Inter-Basin Water transfer in the region.
For me, those last parts are where hope lies. Why? Both are within Nigeria’s control, not totally dependent on the willingness of external forces. Afforestation, biotechnology, and drop in use of water from the lake for irrigation are measures the President can push our agencies to implement. So I expect him to give impetus to such in a national programme of action regarding Lake Chad. Two, our own Dr Akinwumi Adesina is the head of the AfDB. Adesina, we know, is a man who likes to get things done. On this one, I suppose a little nudge from President Buhari is all he needs. It means that with regard to getting things to happen for Lake Chad this time, the President has the ball between his feet. Will he score?
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