Yemi Adebowale
President Muhammadu Buhari believes the Boko Haram insurgency, violence and insecurity in Nigeria are as a result of climate change.
Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to President Buhari, Mr. Garba Shehu disclosed this in an article titled; “In Paris, President Buhari Makes a Strong Case for Lake Chad.”
READ: GARBA SHEHU | In Paris, President Buhari Makes a Strong Case for Lake Chad
In the opening paragraph of the article, Mr. Shehu wrote; “Ask President Muhammadu Buhari what he thinks is the chief reason for the violence and insecurity in Nigeria, including the Boko Haram terrorism in the north-east, bloody wars between cattle herdsman and farmers in central Nigeria, erosion in the east and the environmental catastrophe in the costal regions and he will say, almost upon instinct that it’s the climate change.”
According to the presidential spokesman, “The new Nigerian president who promised to tackle the problem of climate change in his inaugural speech has spun a compelling narrative on the disappearing Lake Chad, the environment around the Chad basin and how these have become the problem of the economy of the neighboring states through the failure of agriculture and joblessness which in turn have provided an easy recruitment into violent extremism. It was a narrative so compelling that it literally arrested the attention of the world as 190 countries met in Paris to agree on the first global agreement on climate change.”
Mr. Shehu noted that President Buhari’s speech at the conference centered on two major issues: one, Nigeria under him has the political will to secure its ecological interests and two, we will work with the rest of the world to protect the environment without compromising industrial development.
After its founding in 2002, Boko Haram’s increasing radicalization led to a violent uprising in July 2009 in which its leader was summarily executed. Its unexpected resurgence, following a mass prison break in September 2010, was accompanied by increasingly sophisticated attacks, initially against soft targets, and progressing in 2011 to include suicide bombings of police buildings and the United Nations office in Abuja.
The group had alleged links to al-Qaeda, but in March 2015, it announced its allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Since the current insurgency started in 2009, it has killed 20,000 and displaced 2.3 million from their homes.
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