Former Head of Service and guest lecturer at the National Council of Environment, Professor, Oladapo Afolabi, has blamed the poor state of the Nigerian environment on bad leadership and urged the sector, to yearn for better leaders, that would bring about a genuine sense of responsibility, to the environment sector.
The former Head of service told the Minister of environment, Sharon Ikeazor, that the ministry should begin to explore ways to introduce carbon footprint tax in the country to dissuade people from engaging in frivolous travels that release more carbons to the environment when they could achieve the same purpose while in their locality or home.
The 15th National Council on the environment had commissioners from the 36 states on the environment where they deliberated on the environment and man.
Professor Oladapo said such taxes will dissuade persons from such travels when they ponder on the taxes to be charged on their movement, based on their transactions on such tracked journey.
He noted that today’s world has been so digitized that movements of persons are easily tracked, which would make charges on human movement possible more so, that the dawn of Covid-19 has made it very possible with technologies to achieve so much without venturing outside the home or locality.
“One missing component in all of these are good and strong leadership for the environment. Right now there are many counterfeit Leaderships.
“We must yearn for and ensure preponderance of real leadership to get us to our promised land perhaps it is too early but we must work towards the introduction of carbon footprint tax to discourage excessive, unnecessary and unplanned movements and travels,” Oladapo urged the government.
He maintained that globalization has shrank the globe to just a digital button away from each other, no matter what part of the globe or the country one was located in.
He told Tribune Online in an exclusive interview that “In augmented reality, you work in such a way that you can feel yourself even when you are in different places.
“You can see each other, though in different places; you can almost drink tea together; you can be in California and the I am here in Nigeria and we drink tea together, not zoom, it is augmented reality yet we have that closeness
“The technology is moving in such a way that we will sit here while in different parts of the world and hug each other. At the same time, we do not human beings to become robots, that they can not feel the passion. So, we have to balance it,” Professor, Oladapo noted.
Explaining the role a good leadership would play in the environmental sector, the former Head of service said, Nigeria can begin to work on exportation of experts in the environment sector with particular reference to climate change.
According to him: “Nigerians generals are blessed because they have good health; they are well built; they look pretty and they have brains.
“We can explore this to make Nigerians to have skills that are exportable. For example in the area if environment, I do not know how many people can prepare climate change budget for financing in Nigeria.
“Yet there are many people who are environmental economics, environmental engineers who can prepare this thin, because they are not put together to do these things the expertise in the sector may be very marginal.
“So, I encourage the ministry of environment to have a small part, like in planning, where such skills are developed for others,” he told the Nigerian Tribune exclusively.
The gest lecturer used the opportunity of the 2022 budget preparation to counsel the ministry of environment and all the closely linked MDA, to co-locate their resources to be able to impact in the environment for the safety of the people and it’s biodiversity.
“One other idea for harmonious and synergistic utilisation of resources for development to advocate clustering of development institutions where resources domiciled in various cognate ministries and agencies could be brought to the cluster for joint projects alignment and implementation monitoring
A good example of this, could be seen on the 2022 proposal of the ministry of environment and the ministry of water resources.
Both have provisions for the “preservation of the environment.” Tribune check revealed that the ministry of environment proposed N20.9bn while her counterpart, the water ministry proposed to expend, N2.8bn for the same provisions in the same year.
This noted that with co-location of resources for the same purpose, more mileage would be attained for a justices served environment that would make living for Nigerians more healthy.
“This will also require effective laws and enforcement; as well as the domestication of international agreements. For environmental peace and harmony, the philosophy of Environmental justice has to be imbibed.
“I am therefore calling for the establishment of departments or units of Environmental Justice in all present institutions that manage environment if it has not been done already,” he concluded.
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