By Chuks Oyema-Aziken
Some Nigerians are alarmed that relevant government bodies have not shown needed capacity to tackle the effects of climate change, resulting in destruction of peoples livelihood and sometimes lives.
This is as vulnerability to food and water insecurity, public health crisis with increased disease burden and heat-related illnesses, displaced communities, and economic instability, with rural and coastal communities, intensify.
For some government officials, it is the season of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties, with delegates set to storm Belem, Brazil from 10 to 21 November, 2025.
The meeting will bring together world leaders, scientists, non-governmental organizations, and civil society to discuss priority actions to tackle climate change. COP30 will focus on the efforts needed to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C, the presentation of new national action plans (NDCs) and the progress on the finance pledges made at COP29.
As usual, they will be a rush by Nigerian government officials to attend the yearly COP with its attendant monetary benefits coming in form of estacode for the privileged who make the delegation.
Critics say the rush to attend the COP by those relevant and also those who do not have anything to do at the conference reflects how the country is treating the issue of climate change.
The pessimism arises from what some say is the obvious institutional failures, inadequate funding and governance, widespread reliance on fossil fuels, and a lack of effective public awareness and education initiatives.
The critics also note misplacement of priorities like diversion of climate finance grants from international agencies to what it was not originally meant for.
Aliyu, a roadside mechanic in Lokoja, Kogi State has abandoned his workshop and now drives a tricycle collected on loan.
Aliyu told Authority Newspaper that he abandoned his mechanic workshop when flood took over the compound.
“My customers stopped coming to my workshop when flood took over the space the second time.
“I am still trying to repair the damages i caused some of them,” he said.
Similarly, Ibrahim has relocated his family from Lake Chad area to Abuja.
Ibrahim was a big time fisherman, and used this main source of livelihood to cater for his large family before the gradual reduction in Lake Chad.
Aliyu and Ibrahim said they have not heard of anything called climate change, despite been at the receiving end of the consequences.
This is the story of climate change in Nigeria. However, some say the relevant government bodies saddled with attending to the disaster have been caught napping.
At a recent media and CSO workshop on climate adaptation, the Executive Director, Global Initiative for Food Security and Ecosystem Preservation (GIFSEP), Dr. Michael David Terungwa lamented the toll of climate change on African economies, noting that between two and five per cent of Africa’s GDP is lost annually to climate-related hazards such as droughts, floods, cyclones and extreme rainfall.
He said up to nine per cent of national budgets across the continent are diverted every year to unplanned climate responses, creating emergency spending pressures that undermine long-term development.
The former acting Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Air Vice Marshal Akugbe Iyamu (Rtd) said the country has engaged more talking to putting actions in place.
“Climate change is the inability of the climate to regulate itself. Before you could have four sections, seasons of the climate, winter, autumn, spring and what’s the other one. So, now those ones are no longer visible, or they are not defined anymore, so you can have winter in autumn and spring in summer, anything can happen, you can see the level of rain that is falling here now, the sun will just be very high, the rain will fall.
“Traditionally, we have moved from what is called supercharging to cloudburst now. Cloudburst is the most dangerous one, and what is now there is a cloudburst, you have as much as five centimetres of rain, five to ten centimetres of rain, falling in one hour. Very, very disastrous.
“The answer is no, we are not moving forward, we are not moving forward. You see, the money that was supposed to have been deployed for managing climate change is the ecological fund. The ecological fund was conceived by President Shehu Shagari of blessed memory in 1981.
“It was one percent, after the Ogunpa and Ojirami flood disasters. He conceived the idea that, look, we don’t have to go and be looking for money when disaster happens, it should be there for you to go and take. And President Ibrahim Babangida in 1992, increased it to two percent, because of the importance, after the birth of UNFCCC and the IPCC.
“Then, President Obasanjo, in 2002, added one percent to be deducted from first-line charge of the National Fund.
“And this was quite substantial. Along the way, the sub-national government saw it as a slush fund, a fund that is very free to be used other than what it was meant for, that’s environmental issues.
From the sub-national, a staff in the Ministry of Environment in a South-West state lamented that the country is getting it wrong in climate change mitigation.
“There is corruption, people don’t know what to do, they are all confused. The right people are not in the right places. So that is the problem we are having. From the head, it’s a problem. That’s why we keep on changing leadership that does not know the content of climate change.
“Going to COP is all about jamboree. People that don’t have anything to do in COP are all there, more than those who have a reason to be there.
“Seriously, there’s a lot of misplacement of priorities in climate change, in Nigeria.
He said international funding agencies are ready to work with Nigeria.
“But when there’s misplacement of priorities, they don’t know what to do. Like for instance, we have the GEF fund. We do not know how to go about it. We have an internal problem that needs to be addressed. If we don’t address it, the funders will be waiting.
He said it is same challenge at both national and sub national.
“The two are the real problems now. We need to take an holistic action from national. From top to bottom. That is the action we need.
“We should put the right person at the right place. And there should be a roadmap. And the corrupt people that are doing business in climate change need to move away.
Director of Climate Change, Kano State Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, Umar Saleh Anka, while agreeing with critics on the state of climate change mitigation in the country expresses optimism
“We cannot say it’s not progressive at all, but rather it is both ways. Challenging and of course progressive in nature. It’s action.
“Action in the sense that if you look at the policy, the policies that we have achieved so far, especially the recent one, NDC 3.0 and submission of BTR 2, of course, you will see that we are making progress and the ongoing review of some policies across the federal ministry of environment and the NCCC and of course, from our own end, sub-nationals, you will see that there are a lot of changes in the sense that most states are now having climate change policies.
“Some are even having climate change laws signed and of course, a state like Kano, we have an action plan, we have implementation framework. All those things you will see that there are progress made.
“Of course, you can see the other way around because one, we don’t have standard in Nigeria, we don’t have standard monetary reporting and verification framework, which of course that one is setting us back. Yes, we lack serious fund. We don’t have funding per se around of course, carbon credit, but for mitigation, which we are supposed to concentrate and adaptation, we lack standard MRB, which is setting us back to getting funding around those places.
“We have to make sure that we, Nigeria, are concentrated around renewable energy mitigation, especially and of course, a holistic or responsible adaptation methods that can take us to the promised land. Now, climate change affects the people in the grassroots. Most of this is Abuja and Nicon Transcorp Hotel and meetings.
“It is quite challenging even for us at the sub-nationals to even attend the meetings. Now, like GIZ and Lagos State Government are trying to see how they can incorporate policies into climate change resilience and adaptation.
“Many state governors did not even respond to the invitations because they are asked to sponsor, to fund their sub-national participants. You can see that most of the things that are being discussed is not getting to the grassroots. For a singular reason that there is no funding.
“There is not enough budget around climate change. That boils down to understanding of what climate change is all about. Of course, even those that are at the helm of affairs, like the directors of climate change can not even attend the meetings at the national in most cases.
“Who is going to cascade? Who is going to bring it down to the masses if they can not even attend? The masses are not even represented in most of the things. Indigenous communities are not considered in most decision-making. It is supposed to be a citizens driven policy where citizens will have their voice heard not the English way.
“It should be going down to the people of the villages to have a kind of PRA, participatory rural appraisal. It is the rural communities that are being affected by the impact of climate change. Until and unless we go down to the grassroots, we have to engage local government chairmen, we have to engage the councillors, and we have to engage the community leaders to make sure that they understand this is for them.
“They need to have a bottom up approach. They should maybe want to voice out and say we need a policy on social sorting. There was a recent health adaptation and climate change vulnerability assessment that was conducted in Kano, Kaduna, and Jigawa.
“You could see that if those kinds of vulnerability assessments will be done to reach out to the communities, making sure that you heard from them, then you bring it out as a policy. That will help in many ways. But you can see that it’s all about we have a policy.
“In most states, if you look at it, it’s a copy and paste in the sense that they are not looking at their peculiarities of the state. Rather, they just want to have maybe to check their boxes, maybe for the climate change governance rating to say that you have a policy. But what are those policies talking about? Do we speak the minds of the vulnerable groups? Do they know even that you have done that policy? Is it their voice? In most cases, you will see that we have done a policy and it has been passed into law.
“We should understand that climate change affects… It’s a cross-sectoral issue that affects all walks of life. Until we realize that inclusion is the key to climate change policy and any engagement, that we’ll be able to bring out something meaningful for the country. Our mitigation, adaptation strategies must be strengthened to make sure that it is the voice of the voiceless, not just the voice of the vocals.”
Experts are calling for a more holistic approach to addressing climate change, including
-Putting the right people in the right places: Ensuring that those working on climate change initiatives have the necessary expertise and knowledge.
- Developing a roadmap: Creating a clear plan for addressing climate change, with measurable goals and targets.
- Addressing corruption: Ensuring that climate finance is used for its intended purpose, rather than being diverted for personal gain.
- Engaging local communities: Involving local communities in decision-making processes and ensuring that their voices are heard.
- Focusing on renewable energy: Transitioning to renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power, to reduce reliance on fossil fuels.
Some progress has been made, including the development of climate change policies and laws at the national and state levels. However, more needs to be done to address the scale and complexity of the challenge. Ultimately, Nigeria’s climate change journey requires a shift from rhetoric to action, with a focus on concrete steps to mitigate the impacts of climate change and promote sustainable development.
