09102019 - 2020: Buhari presents N10.33trn job creation budget to NASS

18 — Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2019
Nigeria and climate change
PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari
on September 24, 2019 in New York
during the 74th Session of the United
Nations General Assembly, announced
plans by his administration
to “reverse the negative effects of climate
change in Nigeria”.
Indeed, Nigeria has long been
known to be vulnerable to climate
change and its adverse effects, especially
on the health and livelihoods
of Nigerians. For instance, desertification
which is rapidly advancing
southward and the possible submergence
of the coastline along the
Atlantic Ocean remain a disturbing
threat.
But there is a lot more to the problems
associated with climate change
and global warming. Before the summit
began, millions of people, in what
was described as the biggest climate
protest ever, took to the streets in
about 185 countries to demand urgent
actions to cut emissions and stabilise
the climate.
Carbon emissions mounted to a
record high last year, prompting
warnings from the UN-backed Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate
Change that the world has only about
a decade left to act to cut emissions.
For long, climate researchers have
agreed that humanity could barely
cope with a temperature increase of
two degrees Celsius.
Nigeria, which accounted for 36 per
cent of gas flaring worldwide, had
committed to completely eliminate
flaring at oil wells by the end of 2008.
But as at 2009, the country’s petroleum
industry was still burning 24
billion cubic meters of natural gas
annually, equal to a third of the annual
gas consumption of the European
Union.
This translated to emission of 400
million tons of carbon dioxide into
the atmosphere, a figure which
equalled the entire emission reduction
programme submitted under the
Kyoto Protocol.
In 2016, Nigeria signed the Paris
Accord and ratified same a year later
in order to cut carbon emissions by
reducing dependence on fossil fuels
and increasing renewable energy
adoption.
Among other points, President Buhari
had said in New York, that “…Nigeria
is presently diversifying its energy
sources from dependence on
gas-powered system to hydro, solar,
wind, biomass and nuclear
sources…Nigeria is progressively
working to realise 30 per cent energy
efficiency and renewable energy mix
by 2030...”.
Although there is no concrete evidence
on ground to show that such a
renewable energy revolution is taking
place in Nigeria, recently the
Nigeria Customs Service arbitrarily
imposed a 5% duty and 5% VAT on
solar panels coming into Nigeria. Already,
batteries, needed for storage of
solar energy, are suffering a 20% duty.
Yet, solar panels are supposed to be
exempted from duties according to Nigeria’s
Harmonised Systems, HS,
Codes classification. These duties have
hiked the cost of solar equipment, resulting
in closure of many solar firms.
Agreed, Nigeria made some significant
progress, reducing flaring by 18
percent since 2013 to less than 8 billion
cubic meters in 2015, her gas flaring
profile still makes her a significant
contributor to global warming.
As Professor Charles Soludo said in
a speech on October 1: “The world is
not waiting for Nigeria. While electric
cars are fast replacing petrol cars,
many of our people are still building
petrol stations.”
Nigeria must sincerely join the rest
of the world in the quest for clean energy.
We must look beyond the present
to a future without fossil fuel.
•
OPINION
Nigeria’s increasing population and child malnutrition
By Carl Umegboro
AFRICA is the second most populous
continent with over one billion people
in the world. Sadly, the greatest number of
births in the continent takes place in Nigeria.
In fact, a forecast at a point did
project that by 2015, one fifth of the continent’s
entire births would take place in
Nigeria alone, accounting for five percent
of all global births which was relatively a
reality. Presently, Nigeria’s population is
over 180 million.
Most critical is the United Nations statistics
which reports that 48 percent of Nigeria’s
population is under the age of 15 -
comparatively a country of the young. And
notwithstanding the fact that the population
of children under the age of five years
currently stands at nearly 31 million, no
less than seven million new-born babies
are added yearly without considering the
implications. Meanwhile, over two-thirds
of the population lives below poverty line.
The human body essentially requires
seven major types of nutrients: carbohydrates,
fats, fiber, minerals, protein,
vitamins, and water. Unfortunately,
numerous families rarely have good square
meals. On the other hand, a high fraction
suffers malnutrition due to ignorance of
dietary.
For instance, there are whole lots of natural,
affordable foods and edibles that can
boost nutrition but either unknown or ignored.
Archetypes are grasshoppers
which, according to research have 20 grams
of protein and just 6g of fat per 100g, while
crickets are good sources of iron, zinc and
calcium. Amazingly, grasshoppers contain
more protein than beef with a whopping
72 percent protein content, including all
essential amino acids, and without saturated
fat or cholesterol.
In the most pathetic class are the large
but poor families who due to ignorance
have more children than necessary. Indisputably,
unplanned pregnancies and births
have continued to result to large families,
regrettably without commensurate
livelihoods, thereby often settling for
whatever is available for survival, with or
without nutritional contents.
Instructively, nutrition is the supply of
food materials required by organisms and
cells to stay alive. Nutrition also focuses
on how diseases can be prevented or
reduced with a healthy diet and how
certain diseases may be caused by dietary
factors, such as poor diet, food allergy and
intolerances.
Remarkably, the use of the ‘Ready-to-
Use-Therapeutic-Food’, RUTF, an initiative
of UNICEF, has turned out to be a
fêted relief as evidently shown in
checkmating child malnutrition, albeit
costly. This was evidenced by the health
conditions of children who were hitherto
malnourished but administered accordingly
in the critical areas of Adamawa, Borno
and Yobe states of the North-East.
Nonetheless, the crux of the matter is
that despite these interventions from
UNICEF with support from the Department
for International Development, DFID,
in providing succours to the critical areas,
about 258,950 children, boys and girls may
still suffer Severe-Acute-Malnutrition,
SAM, in the three states in 2020, according
to Nutrition Sector annual projections.
Reportedly, a budget of N5billion is needed
for the procurement of 258,950 cartons for
the number.
According to UNICEF-Nigeria, funding
has been secured for merely 29,314 cartons
of RUTF with a funding gap of N4.4
billion for these unfortunate victims. Sadly,
nutrition experts avowed that children
suffering from SAM are four to eleven
times more likely to die compared to their
healthy counterparts. Altogether, an
estimated 2.5 million boys and girls under
the age of five suffer from severe acute
malnutrition yearly in Nigeria.
Promoting family planning
is a desideratum in
addressing population
upsurge; similarly,
sensitisations on diet and
having small families to
cater for will reduce child
malnutrition
Statistically, the Nutrition Survey reported
that the prevalence of Global-Acute-
Malnutrition, GAM, in children below five
years is 11% in Borno, 13% in Yobe and 6%
Adamawa, which indicates very high levels
of malnutrition in Nigeria, according to
WHO (World Health Organisation) classification.
UNICEF, on the other hand, affirmed
that one in every two child deaths under
the age of five is attributed to malnutrition.
And if not timely identified and
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treated, malnutrition has serious and
permanent consequences in the growth
and development of children. Above all, it
causes irreversible brain damage and
compromised intellectual capacity in
adulthood leading to reduced productivity
which accounts for estimated 16% loss in
the Growth Domestic Product, GDP.
According to the 2019 World Population
Review, WPR, Nigeria’s population will
hit 206 million by 2020, and 264 million by
2030 – crossing the 300 million threshold
around 2036. In absolute terms, Nigeria is
projected to add from 2031 to 2050 an
additional 224 million babies (21 percent
of the births in Africa and eight percent of
all births in the world). Thus, Nigeria alone
will possibly account for almost one tenth
of all births in the world if not checked.
Understanding this demographic transition
and conscientiously putting in place
realistic interventionist policies will be
helpful in securing a robust, thriving nation
of our dreams. For instance, research
had shown that in 16 African countries,
including Nigeria, less than 20 percent of
women of reproductive age are acquainted
with contraceptive methods, hence producing
babies without restraints.
In the event, an indisputable practicable
panacea is family planning. By its
awareness, more women will practically
have access to modern contraceptives,
thereby reducing numbers of unintended
pregnancy to the minimum. In other words,
promoting family planning is a desideratum
in addressing population upsurge.
Similarly, sensitizations on diets and having
small families to cater for will reduce
child malnutrition.
*Umegboro, a public affairs analyst,
wrote from Abuja