By Femi Ogunshola
Rep. David Fuoh (APC-Taraba) has urged the Federal Government to probe the utilisation of Ecological Funds released for the Great Green Wall (GGW).
The lawmaker who represents Gashaka/Kurmi/Sardauna Federal Constituency in Taraba said this while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Friday.
He urged the Tinubu-led administration to investigate the total sum received through the policy and the level of compliance with the goals and objectives of the project.
He said the the GGW Initiative for the Sahara and Sahel Programme was initiated and adopted by the Head of Governments and States of the African Union in 2005 to drastically address the ecological problems party caused by climate change.
He said the move was to address the issues of desertification, land degradation, Bio-diversity loss, promote climate change resilience by ecosystems and communities.
He added that the motive was to improve food security in about 21 countries of the Sahel region in Africa.
The lawmaker said the National Agency for the Great Green Wall (NAGGVW) is a Nigerian Federal
Agency under the Federal Ministry of Environment.
He said the agency was established to address land degradation and desertification and support communities to adapt to climate change in Nigeria.
He listed the states affected to include Sokoto, Kebbi, Katsina, Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa,Yobe and Zamfara among others.
According to him, 100 households are targeted for this programme and about 16,800 women and youths would be beneficiaries of the initiative to combat the effect of climate change.
He added that this became imperative as Nigeria worked toward the 2060 target of zero carbon emission that pollutes air.
He said the country’s commitment to global environmental sustainability and achievement of the
Country’s Nationally Determined Contribution’s (NDC) has been pegged at 20 per cent emissions
reduction.
He said that this was an unconditional commitment by Nigeria, to the world while it strived to meet the
globally set standard of 47 per cent emission reduction conditionally adopted as a target by 2030.
He said the 2021 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation countries claimed to have spent about $200m in the GGW since the project began.
