Senate President, Akpabio Tasks Ecological Office On Life Threatening Disasters
The Senate President, Godswill Obot Akpabio, has urged the Federal Government to channel more ecological funds towards dealing with life-threatening environmental issues.
Akpabio said this while receiving in audience a delegation from the Ecological Project Office led by the Permanent Secretary Mallam Shehu Ibrahim, who paid a courtesy visit on the Senate leadership.
The Senate President was responding to a submission by the permanent secretary.
The Perm Sec had complained that the monthly N3 billion allocated to his agency was grossly inadequate to tackle the requests it receives daily.
Ibrahim had in his submission said the agency was currently in possession of over 5,000 requests from disaster-ravaged communities across the country for urgent attention.
In response, Akpabio urged the agency to prioritise its interventions. He cited the case of the ocean surge that is currently ravaging five states in southern Nigeria and the massive desert encroachment in the Lake Chad basin.
Akpabio promised that the Senate would carry out necessary legislative actions to assist the ecological office in performing well.
The Senate President said, “The method of intervening and selection of projects must be such that they will put urgency outside the normal data they are working with.
“The Ecological Office should attend to the most urgent situations that are likely to affect the lives of the people before it goes to the ones that may not affect lives. Those that are life-threatening should be selected first.”
The Senate President cited the case of Goretti Girls Secondary School in Ikot Ekpene which he said some school blocks had caved in due to erosion. He also encouraged the office to learn to preempt some of the natural disasters.
Akpabio charged the agency to embark on advocacy.
