From Umar Dankano, Yola
The Adamawa state government has received a donation of 400,000 hybrid seedlings of dates from the Green Great World, GGW, for plantation to mitigate the climate change impact across the state.
Commissioner of Environment, Hon. Muhammad Sadiq Muhammad, revealed the development in an interview with journalists in Yola, explaining that the seedlings are of a high result-driven formula, which would germinate and mature in just four to five years, not like in the olden days, where date plantations took fifteen to twenty years.
Muhammad said that his ministry has also distributed 1.5 million seedlings of different varieties of trees, with each of the 21 local government areas planting 100,000 different seedlings for both scientific and economic growth, noting that already 65% of the trees are being nurtured by experts.
Muhammad disclosed that the Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri’s administration has set up a committee named “The State Mineral Resources and Environmental Management Committee” (MIREMCO) chaired by himself to be looking at issues concerning mining and flood related concerns with a view to safeguarding the state through due diligence approaches.
He added that the Committee has discovered 84 houses to have been built on waterways in Yola South Local Government Area, while some people also built illegally on government-designated locations, which contribute to the sources, causing flooding in some areas.
While responding to an allegation of deduction of local government councils’ funds by the state government for the conduct of monthly environmental sanitation exercise in the state, the Commissioner said that it is true and legitimate because the said deductions are statutory.
He highlighted further that, in every local government allocation, there is a sanitation levy which his Ministry is empowered to choose how and where to undertake such sanitation exercise.
He advanced that his Ministry collect funds from corporate firms like banks, construction companies as part of their corporate social responsibility to contribute to performing environmental sanitation in the state.
“In every local government financial allocation, the Sanitation levy is included, which is given to the Ministry of Environment, which has the power to choose and conduct the sanitation exercise.
“For instance, if it is N11 million being deducted from the LGAs, you know, it is a negligible amount, hence we solicit funds from other ends,” he confirmed.
The Commissioner, therefore, called on all and sundry to have a behavioural change towards the environment so that the air we breathe and the food we eat are healthy.
Sahel Reporters News
