By Ignatius Okorocha
Chairman, Climate Parliament Nigeria, Hon Samuel Onuigbo has assured that the National Assembly will enact a legislation that will reduce proliferation of plastic pollution in Nigeria.
Rep Sam Ifeanyi Onuigbo, a member of House Representatives said this in Abuja at the Unveiling, Installation of plastic and Aluminium Recycling Bins in National Assembly yesterday.
He noted that as Parliamentarians working to address climate change and foster the drive towards a low- carbon Nigeria, Climate Parliament Nigeria chose to install Plastic bottles and aluminum cans recycle bins in the National Assembly as symbolic gesture rallying others to follow suit.
According to him the objective is to increase understanding of appropriate plastic and Aluminium Cans waste disposal and urgent need to protect the environment from plastic and Aluminium cans disposal and positively impact in the National Assembly’s immediate and external environment.
“As this country’s Federal lawmaking body, we hope this project will contribute in driving the making of circular economy-supporting legislation for single-use plastic legislation which can drastically reduce plastic pollution in Nigeria, he noted.
Rep Onuigbo explained that the legislation will make provision for inclusion of circular economy/climate literacy programmes in the nation’s education curricula at all levels.
He noted that it will generally drive for behavioral changes by first changing those here, who will in turn seek accountability from others through oversight.
Fielding questions from Journalists at the occasion, Rep Onuigbo said,” Let members of National Assembly workers; Senators, Hon members know the proper way of disposing plastic bottles, Cans in a particular place and an Agency will come and remove them in ordinary manner and they need to recycle them, they do the recycling in a manner that these non degradable don’t perish, spoil the land and they don’t get into the sea.
“They do not have the fish in the occasion swallowing them and then you will see a fisherman thinking that he has caught a- seven food like fish only for him to roust the fish and discover that he has rousted along plastic in the stomach of the fish which is a major health challenge.
“Secondly these things help to destroy the land, degrade the land, make them not to be able to produce food.
“The essence of this exercise is to show that we remove these things from here in a manner that they are controlled through manage recycling for our health and for the environment. That is the essence of this meeting we have had today and you can see that we are lucky we have the Director General of National Council on climate change because this issue has to do with climate change.”
He further noted,” what we have done today is known as shared responsibility and it is up to the media to champion this to the larger society to make them understand the direction we should go.
“So you have your own responsibility to make the public know about this programme. It is not just for the Lawmakers to legislate on the subject matter because if we legislate and it is not put into practice, it becomes an exercise in futility but now I am going to challenge the media to project this in a way that Nigerians will embrace it.
“This exercise is part of the implementation of the climate change and we are putting everything into effect.
“As you have heard the DG National Council on Climate change said that he was happy to witness the implementation of Climate Change Act in the National Assembly at the Unveiling of plastic bins and their installations.