A new report, the “Environmental Audit of the Drying Up of the Lake Chad” has warned of dire consequences for Nigeria and other neighbouring countries if the Lake Chad basin is allowed to dry up. Presenting the report to President Muhammadu Buhari last week, the Auditor General of the Federation, Mr. Samuel Ukura, said the key message in the report “is that Lake Chad is drying up very fast–from 25,000 sq.kilometre in 1963 to just 1500 sq kilometre at present.” Ukura noted further that there is a correlation between the shrinking of the lake and the current insecurity in the Northeast of the country.
Situated on the extreme northern part of Borno State and bordering three other countries (Niger, Cameroun and Chad), the lake (once famous for being one of the largest water bodies in Africa), has become a shadow of itself. Experts have blamed the shrinkage of the lake on a number of factors including climate change, overgrazing, excessive and inappropriate demand for water resources, as well as poor enforcement of environmental legislation.
A combination of these factors have had adverse effect on the lake so much that apart from occupying less than a twentieth of its original size, there is now receding shoreline, desertification, and a threat to livelihood among the surrounding communities drawn from Nigeria, Cameroun, Chad and Niger. With lack of water for irrigation leading to crop failures, livestock deaths because of desertification, collapsed fisheries, soil salinity, wilting plants, withered trees and shrubs, Lake Chad is fast losing its traditional staples of water and vegetation which had sustained livelihood and bourgeoning economic activities for the about 30 million people in the area.
The implication is that many of the people who had drawn livelihood from the Lake Chad area are moving southward in search of the proverbial greener pasture. This, has in turn, not only put pressure on other sections of the country, it has also promoted clashes between herdsmen and their host communities. The precarious situation in the lake, aptly described as “ecological catrosphe” by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Orgainsation (FAO) recently got the attention of President Buhari when he received the environmental report.
The report which also lamented the pervading poverty in the area linked the rise of the insurgency in the Northeast to the failing fortunes of the lake. Baga, for instance, which used to have a very busy fish market from where most of the other northern states and indeed Nigeria are supplied fish caught from the lake, is now like a ghost town.
Understandably, the shrinkage has also led to some tension and communal clashes among the remaining communities as they struggle to control what is left of the water body. Nigerian communities have clashed severally with Nigerien communities, as a result. It is in a bid to rescue the lake from extinction that both the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) have been seeking ways of reviving and replenishing the “dying lake”. The LCBC, in this regard, had raised the sum of $5 million aimed at funding research on how best to resuscitate the lake and rekindle the socio-economic activities associated with it.
While we therefore commend the concern the Nigerian government is giving the Lake Chad issue, efforts must be made to implement the relevant recommendations of the report with the ultimate aim of resuscitating economic activities associated with the lake. In addition, we call for the effective utilisation of the funds provided for its revival, just as we ask the LCBC to further mobilise all stakeholders to similarly key into the project with a view to saving the lake and the livelihoods, the communities and the lives dependent on it
