Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige said in Geneva, Switzerland, that Nigeria’ recurring national budget deficit caused by the volatilities in the global oil market and insurgency especially in the North East, has compounded the country’s efforts at generating sustainable income, creating employment opportunities, eradication of poverty and the promotion of better livelihood for its citizenry.
Nigeria also said that the country was not isolated from the devastating effects of global warming, stating that “a manifestation of the adverse climatic condition in my country was the recent outbreak of cerebro-spinal meningitis which resulted in the death of over 1000 people predisposed by the extreme heat waves which assisted an uncontrollable meningitis bacteria multiplication.”
Ngige, who headed the Nigerian delegation to the 106th International Labour Conference, ILC said that Nigeria is seeking for assistance of the international community especially ILO to address some of these challenges. On global warming, the Minister pledged Nigeria’ commitment to the Green Initiative as climate change posed the greatest threat to the world especially Africa, saying “The adverse effects can be found everywhere in our ecosystem which have manifested in the difficulties associated with the generation of sustainable income, employment opportunities, eradication of poverty and the promotion of better livelihood for the citizenry.
“A manifestation of the adverse climatic condition in my country was the recent outbreak of cerebro-spinal meningitis which resulted in the death of over 1000 people predisposed by the extreme heat waves which assisted an uncontrollable meningitis bacteria multiplication. We therefore cannot but agree with the Director-General, that the mitigation of climate change is the most paramount element in shaping the present state and future condition of work.”
While explaining that Nigeria’s commitment to fighting climate change is crystallized in the increasing and substantial budgetary allocations to this sector over the last two years, Senator Ngige noted that Nigeria had put in place various measures to tackle the challenges of climate change.
According to him “a roadmap was developed to exit gas flaring in the country by year 2020 and accelerated actions have been taken to reduce desertification through the National Agency for Great Green Wall (NAGGW). Machineries have also been put in place to tackle flooding and cleaning up of oil pollution in the Niger Delta region in collaboration with relevant stakeholders.”
The Minister also noted that the Government had equally taken major steps by putting in place huge investments in the development of infrastructures targeting Solar, Wind and Hydro as cleaner sources of energy, stressing that “in addition, a Sovereign National Green Bond, SNGB, aimed at raising special funds from the capital market that would be used for green projects especially renewable energy (solar), as well as afforestation projects that would help reduce emissions in line with National Determined Contributions, NDC, would soon be launched.
