UN Supports Nigerian Conference To Save Drying Lake Chad

The support of the United Nations for this conference being sponsored by the Nigeria government is important to the entire continent and should be supported by all African nations and the African Union. Refilling Lake Chad will not only transform the Lake Chad Basin, but with the Transaqua inter basin water transfer project, the economy of 12 African nations will be affected. For Africa to development its agriculture and manufacturing sectors it requires great infrastructure projects in water, rail, and energy, which is what I have been advocating for many years.

The Federal Government of Nigeria on behalf of other Heads of States and Government of the Lake Chad Basin Commission is planning an International Conference to proffer solutions on saving the drying Lake Chad. The Conference is scheduled for next month in Abuja.

Nigeria’s Water Resources Minister, Engr. Suleiman H. Adamu, disclosed this in Abuja when the United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, Mrs. Amina Mohammed, paid him a courtesy visit.

Adamu stated that the main objective of the Conference was to find workable solutions in recharging the drying up of the basin. “In the next 50 to 100 years from hydrological perspective, if nothing is done now, the lives of the people of that region that depends on the lake as their source of livelihood would be in danger as the Lake faces extinction,” he said.

The Minister proposes for cheaper and workable solutions to saving the Lake from extinction. According to him, the MoU signed between, the Lake Chad Basin Commission and the POWERCHINA International Group Limited in April 2016 to save Lake Chad from drying up, can be actualized by the transfer of water from the Congo Basin to the Lake Chad Basin.

Adamu said that study done by POWERCHINA, shows that it is technically feasible to transfer water from river Congo to Lake Chad thereby increasing the level of the Lake. This, according to him, would halt the receding of the Lake and the drying of the north basin due to climate change.

Earlier, the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mrs. Amina Mohammed, said that the purpose of the high-level mission which was an informal consultation on political, human rights, humanitarian and development issues will help scale up UN presence in the North East in particular and Nigeria in general.

She said UN is more committed in the re-integration process ongoing in the North East as well as in the planned Conference of Saving Lake Chad that is scheduled for February, 2018. She charged Heads of States and Governments of the Lake Chad Basin Commission to consider passing the resolutions of the Conference in a communiqué to the African Union (AU) for further action.