‘Climate change responsible for crises’

The Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Climate Change, Samuel Onuigbo said climate change played a significant role in the activities of Boko Haram insurgency and the increasing herdsmen/farmers clashes.

Onuigbo in an interaction with newsmen over the weekend said the devastation caused by climate change to the Lake Chad has brought about migration of people that depended on it for livelihoods, which makes them easy targets for Boko Haram recruitment.

“Those who previous depended on Lake Chad for farming have only this one skill for which they used to survive and as the Lake dried up, they moved to cities like Maiduguri, Damaturu and Yola without any other skill to survive. So, they took up any offer given to them to survive, which escalated the Northeast region crisis,” he said.

He added that herdsmen had to move with their cattle to wherever they can find grass to keep their cattle alive, “The effect is the increasing clash between the herdsmen and the farm owners, whose crops are destroyed along the migration route, adding that, “the level of violence instigated as the result of climate change is very dangerous.”