NEWS FG demands Obasanjo’s regime report on Lake Chad

President Muhammadu Buhari has demanded the report of a study carried out on the Lake Chad during the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

He spoke at the State House in Abuja yesterday while receiving from the Auditor-General of the Federation, Samuel Ukura, the report of the Environmental Audit on the Drying-up of Lake Chad carried out by Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) membercountries.

They comprised of Chad, the court of auditor of Niger and the Office of the Auditor-General of Nigeria.

The president stated that his government would like to see the report in order to know how to seek the assistance of Nigeria’s foreign partners.

Buhari said he was disappointed that while presenting the audit report yesterday, the Auditor-General did not mention the report of the study which, according to him, Obasanjo’s government spent $5 million on.

He said apart from contributing 40 percent to the Lake Chad Commission budget, the Federal Government was committed to offering effective leadership in the fight against insurgency and other environmental needs of the Sahel region.

Buhari also assured that he would urge the National Assembly to domesticate the Lake Chad Basin Water Charter adopted on April 30, 2012 by the summit of Heads of State and Government Summit of the Lake Chad Basin Commission.

He said: “I’ve to digress here based on personal knowledge of this. I saw an article in the journal of National Demographic in 1978 that a professor in the University of London in 1925 had foreseen what we’re just seeing. I handed over the article to Gen. Obasanjo and I understand that Gen. Obasanjo took the initiative sometimes ago. It’s on record that he’s the only Nigerian that has presided over the country for more than 11 years. He gave $5m to the study, and the study was that, unless some of the rivers from the Central Africa Republic are diverted to empty into Chad Basin, Lake Chad will dry up.”

Earlier, Ukura had said that there was a strong correlation between stinking Lake Chad and insecurity in the northeast.

According to him, it is believed that part of the root causes of violence and instability in the Lake Chad Basin has not been adequately addressed is the crucial issue of weak water resources management which led to its scarcity.

Ukura listed the findings of the group as including weak control of human activities on the issue of water resources in the Lake Chad Basin and arbitrary construction of dams without impact assessment.