By Onozure Dania

The heavy downpour which led to massive flooding in Lagos last month is an indication that climate change in Nigeria is real. This view was opined by a Lagos-based environmentalist, Mr Desmond Majekodunmi in a chat with Vanguard Homes & Property.

“Climate change is here and climate change is going to cause a lot of problems for us unless we address it very seriously. That rain of Sunday (July 10) was an alarm call that we should all wake up and make sure that the drainage system is functional to take the flood water.We must make sure that they are clean and people should stop throwing pure water sachets and nylon wrappers into the drainage,” he said.

Majekodunmi who described the July 10 rains as a three weeks rain that fell in one day, noted that “this is the problem we are facing with climate change”.

“This is why Ban Ki-moon of United Nations, a very intelligent man, is telling us that the biggest problem facing mankind now, is dealing with climate change. This problem is bigger than terrorism, it is bigger than the economic crunch being experienced by many countries.

So we need to really sit down and ask our selves whether we are ready to tackle this problem? First of all we have to recognise that there is a problem and the type of rain that fell that Sunday, showed us that the problem is there,” he said.

Continuing, Majekodunmi asked a number of rhetoric questions: “We should ask our selves whether we are ready to tackle this problem. Before we do that, those of us who have children should ask our selves whether we really love them? Do we want to protect the lives of our children when we are gone? Are we ready to just create a damaged environment that can hardly sustain the lives of our children?”

He called on Nigerians to embrace trees planting because it is a sure way of protecting the forests from becoming extinct.

The environmental rights activist commended the greening initiative of the Lagos State government. “God created a perfect system and there are many things in that perfect system, that make the system to operate. One of them is the trees and the forest.

Some people call the trees the lungs of the earth and any primary school child can tell you what will happen if your lungs are no longer functioning; you will die.

“So these trees and the forest are the lungs of the earth and we are now destroying the trees and the forests which are the lungs of our planet. It means if we don’t take time, the forests will die and that is exactly what is happening, because we are not acknowledging that our perfect God has created a perfect system for us.”