Africa’s largest solar photovoltaic (PV) plant was launched last Thursday in Nouakchott, the capital of Islamic Republic of Mauritania.
Built by Abu Dhabi-based renewable energy specialist Masdar, the $32 million 15 megawatts (MW) scheme, which is the first utility-scale solar power installation in the country, will provide up to 10 percent of Mauritania’s power.
The plant consists of 29,826 micromorph thin-film panels and will be capable of displacing around 21,255 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) a year. The PV modules were piled into the ground instead of using a concrete foundation, which reduced the project’s carbon footprint and cost.
Mauritania’s electrical grid, which is powered mostly by expensive diesel generators, currently has an installed capacity of only 144MW, resulting in severe energy shortages.
With energy demand increasing by 12 percent annually, the addition of solar power will help meet future electricity shortfalls and supply the energy demand of approximately 10,000 homes, Masdar said in a statement.
The International Renewable Energy Association (IRENA) also commended the inauguration of the new plant.
On his part, Mauritania’s President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz at the inauguration said: ”This new solar power plant not only provides much-needed grid capacity for our people, it also proves that renewable energy can play a major role in the development of our country.”
Masdar’s CEO, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, said: “With energy demand expected to nearly double by 2030, renewable energy will play an increasingly important role, especially in countries where demand is rapidly outstripping supply.”
With strong solar and wind energy resources, Mauritania has the potential to derive a significant portion of its electricity capacity from sustainable and reliable sources of energy.
The launch of the newest solar energy is not the only attempt to explore Africa’s solar power potential. In 2012, UK firm Blue Energy said it would build a 115MW solar plant that could provide electricity to 100,000 homes in Ghana by 2015. Another of such project was launched in Egypt in March, to build a $1 billion 140MW solar plant that will address energy shortage in the country.
Observers believe that can take a similar step, in the light of its power supply challenges.
A source said: “Can you imagine that Nigeria can use a day’s oil sale (about $200 million) to generate 90MW from solar energy> If we just devote two weeks’ sale, the nation can generate 1350MW (about 1/3 of what we currently have). If this is distributed among the rural areas in non-grid fashion, can you imagine how many households will have electricity in the country?
“The money is not up to what our leaders are already using to fight for position and authority in 2015 within a framework of stupid politiking. All point to the fact that we are not serious as a nation.”
Due to the untidy and environmentally-unfriendly nature of mechanic villages – they are said to arbitrarily dispose discarded auto parts and waste oil – the authorities feel they deface the cityscape. But the idea of gathering automobile servicing technicians at specified locations has considerably contributed to the eradication of roadside practice.
In the 1980s, Oladipo Diya, then Governor of Ogun State, relocated mechanic villages within the Abeokuta metropolis. Similarly in Lagos, Governor Lateef Jakande allocated plots of land to the technicians within newly established mechanic villages at various locations in the state.
A few years ago, the Lagos State Government committed to establishing a Mechanic Village Environmental Management Committee towards ensuring that the existing villages are more meaningful, functional and effective. Government is likewise weighing the option of establishing more of such facilities.
Some of the mechanics at Ogba in Ikeja complain of the activities of land speculators, who they fear want to grab the land that was allocated to them and upon which they have been paying ground rent. The mechanics operate under the aegis of the Nigeria Automobile Technician Association (NATA).
Perhaps this development spurred some NATA members at the sprawling mechanic village located under high-tension power lines by the Low Cost Housing Estate (LCHE) at Oke-Afa, Isolo in Lagos, to take their destiny into their own hands. Overnight, they dumped their work overalls and became realtors.
A land allottee started by converting frontages and setbacks of his plot into shops. While some went further to sell the land, others chose the option of transforming theirs into dwelling units. A typical plot in the Oke-Afa mechanic village now features three different land uses: auto work, residential and commercial. Some even feature nursery and primary schools.
The rooms, measuring about three metres by three metres, are usually built against the fence. In most cases lacking cross ventilation, the home features an entrance door and a window. A makeshift, usually unroofed structure, serves as the bathroom and toilet.
A “landlord” begins with one or two rooms and gradually expands. Some units are designed as self-contained apartments. Some developers have built multi-storey residential – and fully occupied – structures on lands purchased from the mechanics.
One of the technicians fear that the development is threatening their source of livelihood as available space to practice the profession is shrinking. He says the trend started several years ago and intensified chiefly because the act is being perpetrated by senior colleagues who, ironically, were supposed to oppose it.
He attributes the spate of conversion to the fact that allocation per plot in the village was done individually and not to a team (a mechanic, panel beater, electrician and blacksmith), such that no one has the sole right over the parcel of land. But the reverse is the case and, contrary to regulations, the mechanics have resorted to erecting permanent structures on the land, even in the face of complaints by government.
According to an official of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), even though there is a guideline that stipulates that people should not erect any structure over a certain distance from power lines, they have refused to comply.
His words: “It is not our job to drive people away from under the lines. Whoever is giving them approval should please put a halt to it. If we erect lines where structures already exist, we pay the owners, but most people build illegally after we erect our lines. They have told us that state and local government officials do come to collect different forms of levy from them.”
A source close to the Lagos Physical Planning & Urban Development Ministry stresses that government only granted approval for citing of mechanic villages and horticultural gardens under high-tension power installations, but that permanent structures are not supposed to be there.
An occupier of one of such units discloses that whenever it rains, he perceives vibrations of electrical current passing through the wires. He admits he is aware of the danger involved in residing underneath the power lines, but that he has resorted to faith.
But experts have warned that people who live under or close to high voltage power lines risk health hazard as the radiation emanating from the facility is potentially carcinogenic, that is having the ability to induce the growth of cancerous cells.
A study conducted by the University of Lagos indicates that persons living in such locations may end up with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia or other forms of cancer because of constant high level exposure to power frequency field or power radiation.
“With about 33,000 volts of electric current flowing through high tension wire, a large electric current – a large electric field is created in the vicinity. If any electric conductor, such as iron rod, metal or wet bamboo is brought within the electric field, it will result in current flow due to difference in potential,” says an electrical engineer.
PHCN, state government and local council officials need to urgently take up the matter and take appropriate steps to effect a turnaround.
The International Centre for Energy, Environment & Development (ICEED) in collaboration with Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN), Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and the Nigerian Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (NACC) have concluded plans to set up national standards for wood burning stoves in Nigeria. This was disclosed by Ewah Eleri, Executive Director of ICEED, during a workshop held recently in Abuja on clean cookstoves design, production and testing.
Ewah Eleri (Executive Director, ICEED) (left), Dr. Roseline Kela (representing the Director General, Energy Commission of Nigeria) and Babatunde Olaleke (of Shell Nigeria Gas Limited) during the workshop on “Taking Stock – Clean Cookstoves Design, Production and Testing in Nigeria,” in Abuja, recently
Eleri said, “Over 20 million households in Nigeria are dependent on the traditional use of fire wood for their daily cooking. As improved and efficient wood stoves come into the Nigerian market, we must ensure that these stoves demonstrate value for their users. Quality assurance in terms of smoke reduction, wood and cost savings are important in building market confidence for these stoves.”
According to observers, smoke from cooking fire causes 95,300 deaths in Nigeria. They add that poor families using three-stone fire spend much of the food budgets on buying wood and charcoal, while others spend hours collecting wood. They note that inefficiency in the combustion of wood raises the cost of cooking for the poor and contributes to deforestation, adding that enhancing efficiency in biomass energy use will address health, poverty and environment challenges and create a market of over N300 billion in new cooking stoves.
Eleri stressed that, today, an independent stove testing and certification facility for biomass stoves does not exist in Nigeria. “Progress towards modern stove design, production, standardisation and testing has been slow. There is lack of regulations and standards for stove manufacturers. The lack of standards and regulations also hinder stove manufacturers’ efforts to differentiate their stoves, and prevent consumers, investors and donors from making informed decisions,” he added.
According to Professor Eli Bala, Acting Director General of ECN, “the standardisation of the energy efficient cookstoves must be taken seriously in order to save our markets, homes and restaurants from being jampacked with quack and inefficient cooking appliances”.
In his remarks, the Director General of SON, Dr Joseph Odumodu, called for closer partnership with stakeholders in developing standards and building the capacity to test locally produced and imported stoves. According to him, “SON will not impose standards for woodstoves. National standards must be a product of close consultation and dialogue among key stakeholders.”
With support from the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, ICEED is establishing the Nigerian Clean Cookstoves Design and Testing Centre at Afikpo, Ebonyi State. The centre will provide stove producers and users, and other relevant stakeholders the opportunity to confidently compare stove performance and safety.
In addition, it will provide a common set of terminology for wood stoves for easier understanding and communication; give stove producers, marketers and users assurance of product quality; let stove users know that they are making worthwhile investments; and drive innovation in the industry. The setting up of the centre will contribute to the Nigerian Alliance for Clean Cookstoves’s goals of 10 million clean cookstoves disseminated to Nigerian homes and institutions by 2020.
The global community is losing up to five percent of global agricultural gross domestic production (GDP) due to land degradation, according to a recent scientific study.
The study titled, “The Economics of Desertification, Land Degradation and Drought: Methodologies and Analysis for Decision-Making,” was presented during the UNCCD 2nd Scientific Conference which held last week in Bonn, Germany.
Halonen
Former President of Finland,Tarja Halonen; Luc Gnacadja, UNCCD Executive Secretary, and Walter Ammann, President, Global Risk Forum (GRF) Davos, addressed the opening session.
Over 600 hundred scientists and representatives of government, international and civil society organisations attended the conference.
It was organised by a consortium led by the GRF Davos, under the theme, “Economic assessment of desertification, sustainable land management and resilience of arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas.”
Gnacadja
“Poverty eradication will still be the main goal of the international community. The trinity of green growth, social justice and global environmental boundaries should guide the work on Sustainable Development Goals for the post 2015 period,” said Tarja Halonen, former President of Finland and Chairman of the Global Sustainability Panel.
“Sustainable land management, prevention of land degradation and rehabilitation of land is a most effective and cost benefit way to eradicate rural poverty. Land will provide food, decent job and income to the rural people. Sustainable land management is also closely linked with availability of energy and water sources,” she stressed.
She said that the information presented to the 2nd Scientific Conference of UNCCD indicates that integration of sustainable land management as a central part in the development policies and international cooperation will be smart economics, contribute to better life in rural areas and mitigate the environmental challenges.
Ammann
According to Luc Gnacadja, “This is the first economic valuation of the cost of desertification and drought in over twenty years. It shows that desertification, land degradation and drought are key constraints to building social and environmental resilience, achieving global food security and delivering meaningful poverty reduction. Without action they will remain development’s Achilles Heel.”
“The study also points to significant opportunities for action but shows that unless scientific understanding of all land degradation and drought is strengthened, especially in the context of a changing climate, the global community is poorly positioned to deal with the impact of change. Business as usual is no longer an option,” he warned.
President GRF Davos, Walter Ammann, on his part declared: “Fertile soil is our most valuable non-renewable resource. It lays the foundation for life, feeding the billions populating of our planet. Nevertheless, each year an area three times the size of Switzerland is lost for good due to desertification. We are cutting off the branch we are sitting on! We need to move from Thoughts to Action now! This conference is an important step.”
The study shows that between 4-12 percent of Africa’s agricultural GDP is lost due to environmental degradation. The direct economic costs of land degradation at country level vary widely, with some as high as 6.6 percent of agricultural GDP in Paraguay, nine percent in Burkina Faso and 24 percent in Guatemala.
Water is an essential resource for human existence and survival. Over the past century, the use of water has been growing at more than twice the rate of global population increase – a development which has raised diverse concern on man’s access to clean and portable water.
According to the World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP), 70 percent of the world’s freshwater is used for irrigation, 20 percent for industrial productions and 10 percent for domestic activities.
Water scarcity or lack of access to clean drinking water is one of the world’s leading problems affecting more than 780 million people globally, meaning that one in every eight people lacks access to safe drinking water. In Africa, over 346 million people make up this global figure with Nigeria – 66 million, ranking first in Africa and third on the global list of countries with low access to clean water.
Apparently, access to clean and portable water is a daily challenge for most Nigerians. 66 million is sure a disturbing figure considering the country’s 160 million population and the 75 percent access to safe drinking water target of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which Nigeria has only achieved up to 32 percent barely two years to the expiration of the MDGs framework. There is therefore the need to intensify action in the provision of clean and affordable water sources to the Nigerian populace.
From urban centres to rural settlements, the reality of an ever-changing climate is constantly driving man’s quest for more water, all for daily survival. This is worse off in developing countries – Nigeria inclusive, where little or no attention is given to the mitigating and adapting to the huge effects of global warming and climate change.
The problem of unsafe water consumption is particularly acute in the rural Northern Nigeria, where only about 30 percent of the population has access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation. This situation leads to high prevalence of waterborne diseases, threat to the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and contributes to low levels of school enrollment, especially among girls.
Dirty water is the world’s greatest single killer. Yearly, over 3.4 million people die from water, sanitation and hygiene-related diseases. Every hour, 200 children die of water-borne and related diseases globally. Half of the world’s hospital beds are filled with people suffering from water related illnesses. What more can we say? Water is life, yet it is killing us.
Water withdrawals are predicted to increase by 50 percent by 2025 in developing countries. By 2025, 1,800 million people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world’s population could be under stress conditions.
In Nigeria, activities to make for easy and affordable access to clean water have been on a low level. Government at all levels continue to pay little or no attention to the provision of clean water to citizens. Policies on water are often not well thought-out and implemented. Consciously or unconsciously, private and public efforts on water distribution are concentrated in the urban centres, whilst neglecting the rural centres which are home to over 65 percent of the Nigerian populace.
Appropriated funds for water projects are misappropriated. Looting thrives at the expense of citizens’ health and wealth. Epileptic power supply hinders the functionality of installed water-generating systems. Regulatory bodies barely keep up with the responsibility of examining water production companies and their products, thus, the consumer is at the mercy of profit and not hygiene conscious business enterprises.
Lack of access to safe water is not a technical problem – it is a human, logistics, funding and efficiency issue. Nigeria of course has the money to make it happen. In fact it has been exposed that it would only take one third of what Nigeria spends on bottled water in one year to pay for projects providing water to everyone in need.
While it is not uncommon to see millions of sachet and bottle water in urban cities, one’s mind only question though helplessly if the purest of pure water is pure enough for human consumption. Considering the medical and social effect of these packaging content as non-biodegradable, a swift action must be taken by relevant agencies to avert these anomalies.
As a signatory to the 2007 International Convention on the Economic, Social & Cultural Rights (ICESCR) framework which provides the legal basis for the rights approach to water and sanitation, Nigeria must explore all means possible to ensure the provision of clean and safe water to citizens in every part of the country. This is so imperative because no appreciable development can be made without life – which water is a sustainer.
It is highly disappointing that, in this 21st century, a Nigerian parliamentarian takes delight in throwing a village party to commission a borehole water project for a single community, of which no sustenance plan has been made.
If the country’s vision of achieving the MDGs is real, then adequate and productive investment must be made in water, else the country’s hope of emerging as a leading economy by the year 2020 will only remain a mirage.
Report has shown that Nigeria needs N356 billion annually to overcome its water challenges. This is a good step in tackling the country’s water challenges. However, beyond the financial projections, government should engage viable private firms, provide enabling environments for such firms and projects to thrive, supervise and regulate activities, provide sustainable means of water production and distribution.
The investment on water can never be unproductive as experts have revealed that for every $1 invested in water and sanitation, there is an average return of up to $9, depending on the region and technology. Getting clean water to rural villages is the most effective strategy to help the poor.
Water is life. A thirty nation is a dying nation. Save Our Nation, Save The Planet!
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have launched a new action plan, tackling for the first time two of the biggest killer diseases of children under five in Nigeria – pneumonia and diarrhoea The plan aims to end preventable deaths of children in the country from these diseases by 2025, which would save over 241,000 lives a year.
Ojo
WaterAid Nigeria spokesperson and Country Representative, Dr Michael Ojo, said: “This Action Plan is all about doing more of what we already know works: Increasing access to drinking water and adequate sanitation, promoting breast feeding, improving availability of vaccines and making sure that treatment is on hand when children need them.
“It is the responsibility of the Nigerian Government to embrace and implement the plan and the cost of inaction and failure is very high and will be measured in the lives of our children. But with the support and assistance of organisations like WaterAid and donors, we can succeed in ending these preventable deaths.”
Every year in Nigeria over 143,000 children under the age of five die of pneumonia, while over 97,000 die of diarrhoea Between them, they account for over a quarter (28 percent) of all the child deaths in the country.
The Action Plan calls for a substantial shift is in how poverty reduction efforts are coordinated in the country. Aid programmes need to bring together different areas of work, such as access to drinking water, health and education, to make them more effective.
Alongside dozens of development charities, WaterAid has signed a joint statement in support of the new Action Plan that declares: “We can save countless lives by using an integrated approach to fighting disease, improving access to proven interventions and by prioritising efforts to reach the poorest and most marginalised children. As the latest data demonstrate, the Global Action Plan on Pneumonia and Diarrhoea provides the most cost-effective approach and will help achieve the greatest impact in reducing child deaths.”
The statement offers recommendations for developing country governments, businesses and donors.
Oloibiri is a small community in Ogbia Local Government Area in Bayelsa State, in the eastern Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Oloibiri is a historic town to the oil and gas industry as the first commercial oil discovery was made there (at Otuabagi/Otuogadi) by Shell Darcy on Sunday, January 15th, 1956 after about 50 years of exploration.
Indeed, Oloibiri has many firsts to its credit in the nation’s oil and gas industry: Oloibiri-1 well is the first commercial oil well in Nigeria; completed on June 1956, Oloibiri-1 well is the first completed commercial oil well in the country; Oloibiri oilfield is the first commercial oil field in Nigeria; Nigeria’s first crude oil export came from Oloibiri field in February 1958; and Nigeria’s first crude oil pipeline was laid from Oloibiri oil field to Port Harcourt (in River State) on the Bonny River (Bonny Export Terminal).
In fact, the development of the oil and gas industry in the Nigeria will be incomplete without a mention of Oloibiri where it all started. The Oloibiri field launched Nigeria into the limelight of petro-dollar state.
Nigeria joined the ranks of oil producers in 1958 when its first oil field came on stream producing 5,100 barrels per day (bpd). After 1960, exploration rights in onshore and offshore areas adjoining the Niger Delta were extended to other foreign companies. In 1965, the EA field was discovered by Shell in shallow water South East of Warri.
In 1970, the end of the Nigerian civil war coincided with the rise in the world oil price, and the country was able to reap instant riches from its oil production. Nigeria joined the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 1971 and established the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) in 1977, a state-owned and controlled company which is a major player in both the upstream and downstream sectors.
By the late sixties and early seventies, Nigeria had attained a production level of over two million barrels of crude oil a day. Although production figures dropped in the 1980s due to economic slump, 2004 saw a total rejuvenation of oil production to a record level of 2.5 million barrels per day.
Petroleum production and export play a dominant role in Nigeria’s economy and account for about 90 percent of her gross earnings. This dominant role has pushed agriculture, the traditional mainstay of the economy, from the early 1950s and 1960s, to the background.
But the joy of oil production and wealth has been blighted by large-scale environmental degradation in form of pollution of water bodies and farmlands by spilled crude oil as well as flared gas. The Niger Delta is now adopted as a crime scene that equals ecocide or action from human agency resulting in the extensive damage to, or destruction of ecosystems that endangers people’s life.
The restive, ecological disaster region is no longer one of the most polluted areas in the world but now regarded by the international community as the most polluted inhabited place on earth. Here, human rights violations are rife.
The average Nigerian would love to forget incidents such as the Shell’s Bonga spill which spilled over 40,000 barrels on December 23rd, 2011 and Chevron’s North Apoi rig explosion offshore on January 16th, 2013. Till date, there are over 4,000 oil spills in the Niger Delta and not one has been adequately cleaned up, making the region suffer from oil spills that equals one Valdez oil spill annually.
Observers are frowning at the unsavoury development, saying that urgent steps need to be taken to address the situation from further deteriorating.
Dr Godwin Ojo, an environmental activist, wants government to recognise the Niger Delta as an ecologically devastated environment and to, as a matter of urgency, declare a state of environmental emergency for restoration and compensation.
“So far, militarisation strategies through military Joint Task Forces (JTF) have proved a fiasco time and again,” he says, alleging that oil companies are substituting corporate social responsibility (CSR) schemes for environmental remediation and compensation.
“We reject the oil companies’ CSR that is subject to manipulation and abuse. Until environmental health is restored, we call for the immediate suspension of all forms of oil companies’ corporate social responsibility that is weakening and dividing the people than providing any net material benefits,” demands Ojo, who is of the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN).
Similarly, attacks including kidnappings and bombing of oil installations by groups such as the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) cut more than 28 percent of Nigeria’s oil output between 2006 and 2009. The violence declined after thousands of fighters accepted a government amnesty offer in 2009 and disarmed.
But the rebel group is threatening to resume assaults following the recent imprisonment in South Africa of its leader, Henry Okah, who was jailed 24 years after he was found guilty of 13 counts of terrorism, including a bombing that killed 12 people in Abuja on October 2010.
The Federal Government has been asked to establish an independent National Environmental Tribunal (INET) to try and resolve all environmental justice cases that are pending.
Ojo
According to Dr Godwin Ojo, the new Executive Director of the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), ecological debt from environmental destruction is piling up, adding that it is time for the agents and corporations to pay up.
He stated that the crime scene of environmental despoliation is intensifying throughout the Niger Delta in Ikot Ada Odo, Bodo, Goi, Ikarama, Kalaba, Iwhereka, Oruma, Kwale, Urokhousa, Ilaje and a host of other oil-bearing communities, lamenting that the development is sending victims to their untimely graves as impunity is left unchecked.
“We urge policy makers and parliamentarians to put in place a policy framework to kick-start the INET) process to allow for corporate and individual liability,” Ojo stated on Wednesday in Lagos in a presentation at an interactive session.
In a similar vein, Ojo, a political ecologist, called for an amendment in the law of evidence and proof in environmental cases. He emphasised that, in the case of oil pollution, the burden of proof should shift to the respondents to demonstrate otherwise claims by the plaintiffs.
“This is because the burden of proof as currently practiced is too heavy a duty to be discharged by the poor hapless victims. So far, less than one percent of the environmental justice cases ever make it to court due to crucifying inhibitions strewn in the way of justice. After 10 to 15 years of litigation, communities are forced to accept paltry compensation and to sign indemnity clauses that absolve such oil companies from remediation. Whether in Nigeria, California or The Hague, losing court cases not on grounds of merit but on spurious technicalities is injustice. Collectively, we must right this wrong,” he declared.
The ERA/FoEN also proposed a National Basic Income Scheme (NaBIS) for the poor to, according to Ojo, redress the widening gap of inequalities through a national wealth redistribution system.
His words: “Nigeria is one of the countries in the world where the gap of inequality is highest. Over 68 million Nigerians are unemployed, millions live on less than two dollars per day and millions more go to bed hungry. Given the official figures from the Bureau of Statistics that Nigeria earned N48.4 trillion between 2000-2011, and N8.8 trillion in 2011 from oil wealth, Nigeria can afford minimum Basic Income Stipend of about N18,000 exclusively to the poor and unemployed if we are to halt this decline towards a political class economy. It has the opportunity to release locked-up potentials.
“This scheme as in other climes may be funded or subsidised by a reform of the progressive tax system. It is reparation from unequal use of natural resources from systemic internal colonialism. If the national budget trend is anything to go by, a situation whereby less than one percent of the population enjoys about 70 percent of the national wealth through recurrent expenditure while the 99 percent of the 170 million population is made to settle for 30 percent in capital expenditure from the national wealth is no longer acceptable. It is this sort of insensitivity that is maintaining poverty and leading to violent conflicts that is not conducive for our development. There is too much money flying around, and the citizens must wake up from docility and place real demands on their government.”
He wants the nation to take advantage of the emerging energy transition model in renewable sources of energy and to diversify its economy from oil-dependency to a non-oil economy.
He stressed that, by consistently advocating leaving oil in the soil, and coal in the hole, a post-petroleum economy is expedient to eliminate waste and oil theft.
“It is a mystery that the barrels of crude oil produced daily in Nigeria remain unknown as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), and government brand different figures. Because the volume is unknown, actual receipts remain mere conjectures. Whereas production volume is placed around 1.8 million barrels per day, projections far exceed thre million barrels per day. We are asking the oil companies and the government: What does it take to meter the oil wells and flow stations?
“The question of impunity is running virile due to lack of transparency and accountability in the oil sector operations and in the management of oil wealth. Oil is drilled under military shield and much stolen under their watchful eyes. The refusal by oil companies and state acquiescing to resist metering at the flow stations sounded like fiction. Only crude pumped at the export terminal is recorded as produced rather than from the oil wells. This mockery is simply unacceptable. Blaming the victims and locals who account for about 10 percent of the oil theft while neglecting to fight the other few but powerful cabal who steal about 90 percent of petroleum products is calculated to give a dog a bad name in order to hang it.
“We question the Federal Government’s amnesty programme that is not holistic but tokenistic, and failing to address the root causes of the oil resource conflict. Government has also failed to account for those other peaceful aggrieved agitators like the Ogonis (apparently, they had no guns). Rewarding entrepreneurs of violence alone installs a cycle of violence and crimes, kidnapping for ransom and other vices threatening the peace and security of our nation.”
The Third bi-Annual General Meeting of the West Africa Water and Sanitation Journalists (WASH-JN) holds in Dakar, Senegal, April 8-10, 2013.
Babalobi
About 28 media executives reporting water supply and sanitation issues for radio, television, newspaper and online media in 14 West Africa countries will attend the meeting, organised with the support of WaterAid in West Africa and the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC).
The meeting will deliberate on in-country activities of institutional members of the WASH-JN – the national Water and Sanitation Media Networks, progress reports on grant projects implemented by the member countries, as well as election of new officers for the regional WASH media network.
Delegates will also use the opportunity to visit some slum communities in Senegal and report on the state of access to water supply and sanitation services.
Nigeria will be represented by Lizzy Elizabeth Achuagu of the Enugu State WASH media network and Babatope Babalobi, who is General Secretary of the WASH-JN.
The United Nations and its partners around the world will next week observe the 1,000 days to the end of 2015 – the target date for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – to inspire further action.
Ki-Moon
“The MDGs are the most successful global anti-poverty push in history,” UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, said. “The Goals have helped set global and national priorities, mobilise action, and achieve remarkable results.”
The eight time-bound MDGs address poverty and hunger, education, gender equality, child mortality, maternal health, combating AIDS, malaria and other diseases, environmental sustainability and a global partnership for development.
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director, said: “The MDGs have proven to be a powerful focus for international efforts to eradicate poverty and catalyse action towards sustainable development”.
“In respect to MDG 7 on environmental sustainability, there has been considerable progress in respect to the provision of water and the extension of National Parks and other protected areas on land and, to an extent, at sea,” he added.
“But the broader challenges of putting the environment and its natural or nature-based assets at the heart of sustainable development and the lives and livelihoods of over seven billion people remain a real work in progress. The Rio+20 Summit of 2012 has laid out some new and inspiring pathways for achieving this, including the opportunities from a transition towards a Green Economy,” said Steiner.
“The post 2015 development agenda affords a further opportunity to deliver goals based on broader notions of wealth – from the planet’s freshwaters to its forests, soils and atmosphere – and the urgency to decouple economic growth from pollution footprints and over-exploitation of humanity’s finite natural resources,” he added.
Starting 5 April, the actual milestone date, and running through 12 April, the UN will work with governments, civil society and international partners to mark “MDG Momentum: 1,000 Days of Action” in a variety of ways.
In Madrid, Spain, the Secretary-General and young people from the Spanish and European Youth Councils observed the moment at a special event on Thursday, joined by a number of heads of UN agencies, funds and programmes who are visiting for a senior-level UN meeting.
Since the MDGs were adopted by all UN Member States in 2000, governments, international organisations and civil society groups around the world have helped make tremendous progress to improve people’s lives. The world’s extreme poverty rate has been cut in half since 1990. A record number of children are in primary school — with an equal number of girls and boys for the first time. Maternal and child mortality have dropped. The world continues to fight killer diseases, such as malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS. Since 1990, two billion more people have gained access to safe drinking water.
To build on this success and accelerate action, the Secretary-General called on the international community to: increase targeted investments in health, education, energy and sanitation; empower women and girls; focus on the most vulnerable people; keep up aid commitments; and re-energise efforts from governments to grassroots groups to make a difference.
“The MDGs have proven that focused global development objectives can make a profound difference,” Ki-Moon said. “Success in the next 1,000 days will not only improve the lives of millions, it will add momentum as we plan for beyond 2015 and the challenges of sustainable development.”
Built by Abu Dhabi-based renewable energy specialist Masdar, the $32 million 15 megawatts (MW) scheme, which is the first utility-scale solar power installation in the country, will provide up to 10 percent of Mauritania’s power.
