Oyo monarch, don lament falling ecosystem in Nigeria

•Fayemi pledges FG’s commitment to erosion, flood control

The Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi has lamented the unregulated ecosystem in the country.He spoke at the 2018 Nigerian National Merit Award Award Winners’ Lecture at Trenchard Hall, University of Ibadan.Professor Emeritus, Seth Sunday Ajayi, delivered the lecture entitled: “Refocusing the attention of the Federal Government of Nigeria on ecology and the environment.”

The monarch said the poor management of human activities on the natural environment has impeded the country’s ecological and economic development.According to him: “The greatest gift of life is the character, which emanates from heredity environment and education.

“The Federal Government and people of Nigeria must listen to the advice of intellectuals. It is disheartening that most rivers had dried up, blocked or polluted with aftermath effects,” he said.He cited other challenges as impeded flooding through the human activity of dropping refuse in flowing rivers.He explained that a lot of things that people engage in often destroy the environment, particularly the indiscriminate burning and dumping of refuse inside rivers.

“Most of the foods that we eat are from inorganic sources, which make the people to live unhealthy lives,” he said. He lamented that many animals that the people were acquainted with in the past are no longer available for today’s youths to see.This, he said is because they had been killed through bush burning and other erroneous human activities.

On his part, Ajayi said the Nigerian environment is a home of all organisms including humans, and stressed the need for the revitalisation and upgrade of national laws on wildlife and forest conservation.

He urged government to urgently create wild and ecotourism research institutes and also establish a National University of Fisheries.He also called for farm settlements and villages across the country to serve as a potent solving-tool for major socio-economic problems.Ajayi enjoined the Federal Government to take proactive measures to mitigate the myriad of negative impacts of climate change.

Meanwhile the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, has pledged Federal Government’s commitment to even development in the country.He spoke at the commissioning of Soil Erosion, Flood Control and Road Improvement works in Otan Ayegbaju, Osun State.
 
The minister said President Muhammadu Buhari administration would implement genuine government policies, agreements and contracts at both national and international levels, which the previous administrations entered into.