By Dominic Okoliko

Climate change is now a familiar concept in policy corridors across the globe, but it is almost absent in political campaigns during elections in Africa. Yet, Africa is widely acknowledged as a region with the least resilience to climate change impacts that have become more frequent and unprecedented in scale. In this piece, I argue that it is a poor reflection on would-be leaders who fail to appreciate that the governance challenges they aspire to undertake have become complicated by the phenomenal ecological disturbances that we now witness across the local to national and transnational scale. Consequently, there is no room for business-as-usual governance as most developmental challenges facing Africa today are either exacerbated by climate change or have been made more difficult to resolve due to it.

When I observed Nigeria’s national election of 2019 and concluded that there was “no place for climate change” during the political campaigns leading up to the election, I was only adding to the list of what has become a pattern for major democracies in Africa. For example, a similar conclusion was drawn about South Africa during the 2019 national elections and the 2021 local government elections in the country. In both elections, it was noted that references to climate change by major political parties in manifestos and rhetoric did not go deeper in articulating meaningful and realistic policies.

In Nigeria’s case, concerns about corruption, security, stable power supply and economics eclipsed other concerns in previous elections, and these were presented and discussed by leading candidates without reference to climate change. This failure by our politicians reflects a poor understanding of the challenge of governance as it concerns resolving developmental gaps in Nigeria and Africa at large. Tackling food security, access to clean and affordable water, migration, conflicts, energy security, infrastructures, and other litanies of Africa’s needs can no longer be treated in isolation from climate change concerns.

Take security as a case. Climate-induced violence and displacement are no longer distant occurrences in Africa. In South Sudan, years of catastrophic flooding have pushed herders, including the Dinkas, southward to the Equatoria region resulting in displacement and conflicts with host communities. Similar southward migrations are now being observed for communities in northern Kenya, Mali, Sudan, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and this pattern is akin to the situation in Nigeria.

In Nigeria’s case, the increased migration of herders towards the south has fuelled farmer-herder conflicts, initially, in the North-Central states along the Benue and Niger rivers but in recent times, the tension has extended to the southern states such as Ogun State. According to the Crisis Group, herder-farmer clashes claimed more than 1,300 lives in the first quarter of 2018 alone. The conflict which has also led to the displacement of several thousand arises due to land-use contests. More arrivals in the southward states mean that more hands contest to use limited arable land for crop and animal production.

Thus, fast-paced desertification of the Sahel regions, droughts and floods in other regions with links to rising global temperatures are among the factors driving the African migration patterns. This has forced the African Union to recognise that climate change amplifies conflict risks. It exposes existing vulnerabilities such as weak infrastructures and governance and increases tensions which can lead to violent outbreaks.

A similar case can be made for the goals to boost food security, and end hunger and poverty in Africa. There is a tripartite relationship between land use, crop production and climate change and this makes ignoring climate change in food policies dangerous. Agrarian practice in Africa is largely rain-fed and dependent on access to arable land. The unpredictability of season on-sets and frequent occurrences of weather extremes such as floods and droughts have reduced farmers’ turnover in recent years in many African communities.

Consequently, policy interventions failing to consider these complexities would do little. Taiwo-Hassan Adebayo’s report on the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme by the current administration in Nigeria is a case in view. The report reveals that early gains from the programme initiated to boost agricultural activities and yields are now being reversed due to increasing environmental degradation and security crisis. According to the Nigerian government, as of May 2021, N1.01 trillion has been expended on the programme benefiting over 4 million farmers across 21 farming commodities. However, many farmers, especially in the desertification frontline states, have abandoned farms due to encroaching aridity and worsened security crises. As a result, the supply of essential food products such as tomatoes, and grains (rice, wheat, maize) have declined in Nigeria leading to rising food prices.

Given that political campaigns offer a window opportunity for political candidates to sell their agenda to prospective voters, citizens must task the 2023 candidates on commitments to climate change. Recent remarks and tweets from two leading presidential candidates are signs of positive change considering that past elections rarely feature climate change in political discourse. In one case, Mr Abubakar Atiku, the holder of the PDP presidential tickets, tweeted on September 11, 2022, to acknowledge recent floods in Lagos and elsewhere that they are climate change effects. He also correctly acknowledged how such climate impacts disproportionately affect farmers and the poor for whom he offered sympathy.

In a similar reaction, the Labour Party candidate for the presidential election, Mr Peter Obi, tweeted on September 21, 2022, to also acknowledge the devastation occasioned by floods in Jigawa State. Like Atiku, he offered his sympathy to victims and pointed out that due to climate change, such disasters are likely to be expected in the future.

The two candidates, however, fail to point out any concrete plans regarding mitigating and/or adapting to similar future climate risks in Nigeria. Instead, in an earlier outing before his tweet, Mr Peter Obi lost out on a major opportunity offered to him to educate potential voters on how he intends to factor climate change in his energy and industrialisation plans. This incident and the tweets from both Messrs Atiku and Obi generated heated debates on social media with many offering the opinion that climate change does not deserve attention in Africa.

Contrary to such an opinion, climate change matters in Africa because the impacts are no longer future predictions; they are in the changing landscapes, rising temperatures, frequent occurrences of extreme weather events, and their impacts on social, and natural systems in communities. Future development plans in Africa need a climate change perspective to provide holistic solutions to African problems.

This is also important as leaders who chose to ignore climate change stand to lose in several global financial initiatives that lurk around for developments. Additionally, such a leader would find it difficult to access global capital as most international financial frameworks are increasingly tilting financial flows towards projects that are low or carbon-neutral.

Therefore, as Nigeria heads to proper campaign season this September 28, political candidates should be reminded that anyone aspiring to lead Nigeria – one of the African countries desiring to lead climate actions on the continent – cannot shy away from discussing climate change. Citizens should expect to hear about solutions that factor-in building resilience of citizens to climate disruptions and solutions that have fewer carbon footprints. Media and political debate organisers should endeavour to ask the candidates difficult questions regarding how they fit climate change into their post-2023 agenda for Nigeria. If the 2023 elections will be different, climate change should be at the centre, not on the fringes.

Dr Okoliko is a research fellow with the School of Public Leadership, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Follow him on Twitter