BY EMMA OVUAKPORIE
ABUJA—HOUSE of Representatives member, Dr Akpan Micah Umoh, yesterday said danger is lurking around the corner if urgent steps are not taken to remedy the climate change in Nigeria as the effect will be more devastating in the Niger Delta.

Rep Umoh who is an expert on environmental matters with a special bias in Climate Change said with the rise in rainfall, Nigeria is in a precarious position as all the six zones are prone to one form of geographical calamity or the other.

He, however, pointed out that the panacea to the looming danger is for the country to quickly install climate indicators in all the zones and tidal gates in all the coastal states in the federation as this will help checkmate lurking geographical debacle orchestrated by climate change.

He turther explained that ”what need to be done, in fact in the entire coastal region of Nigeria, first of all there should be establishment of monitoring stations at strategic locations not just when you are having one office of NEMA in Lagos, one in Port Harcourt, not that one, I am talking of having what you call tide gates, they are supposed to be located in various locations within the entire coastal region of Nigeria.

These tidal gates helps you to monitor and know when there are strategic or phenomena changes in tide level.
“And you will also be able to monitor what we call hydraulic modifications within the area, this hydraulic modifications could be caused by activities of people trying to sand fill some areas to build houses and all of that, all these things have strategic hydraulic modifications within the coast lines and all these must be taken into consideration when dealing with the issue of the coastal region.

“There must be monitoring facilities located at strategic points throughout the coastal regions of Nigeria, because the issue of rise in sea level is coming and the one that will be most hazardous when these things begin to enter the Niger Delta region, because these are the low line regions of this country.

“We are going to be the first to be seriously affected with a small shift in rise in sea level and what would cause this; changing rain fall pattern, because of change in climatic condition, as we are having desert encroachment in the North, we are going to have increased rainfall in the South and we are going to have the most serious erosion in the South East regions where the soil property of the area is very, very weak. There is a low clay content in the soil of South East region, so any rain that fall takes away the soil.

“In the North there is going to be a lot of encroachment of the desert, because the Lake Chad region is drying up at a fastest rate and if it dries up people will have no land to cultivate, there will be no water to feed the cattle. And of course, as it dries up the trees will begin to go, everywhere will begin to dry up, so these are the problems of climate change and we must look at them critically,” Umoh added.