Nigeria First Nation To Receive Climate Clock In Africa

Nigeria is the first African country to obtain a climate clock as part of the country’s efforts to combat climate change and desertification.

During the ‘High Level Presentation Ceremony of the Climate Clock to Nigeria,’ Jerome Ringo, the founder and Chairman of Zoetic Global Ltd in the United States, delivered the climate clock to the Minister.

Dame Pauline Tallen, the Minister of Women Affairs, received the clock on behalf of the Federal Government in Abuja on Tuesday night.

According to Dame Tallen, the government is making constant efforts to combat climate change in the region.

According to her, the federal government is collaborating with local, national, and international climate groups to achieve the set climate target.

“Climate change is a global issue, impacting different parts of world and at varying degrees. However, developing countries like Nigeria have less capacity to adapt to climate change impacts. In that order, women and the vulnerable groups have the least capacity to adapt to the impacts.

“So, when you are looking for the face of climate change- look at the face of the women. This is quite evident in our communities in Nigeria, where over 60 per cent of the workforce in agriculture sector are women.

“The impact of climate change in Nigeria is huge. The drying up of Lake chad to 10 per cent of its original size has caused undue hardship to the lives in that region. It has adversely affected lives and livelihoods and increased vulnerability of our young ones to restiveness and militancy,” Tallen said.

She said that every year, Nigeria loses about five kilometers to desertification, resulting in forced migration, the loss of farmland, and untold misery for communities, families, and particularly women and children.

She said, “Flooding has become a yearly event in Nigeria, I recall news items where mothers have helplessly watched their homes overtaken by flood, farmlands lost and in some cases, like in Akwa Ibom State, a mother struggled to save her toddler from the wave of flood but she lost out to the flood.

“It is therefore a great pleasure that today, the Climate Clock is being launched in Nigeria, the first African nation to have it and women are well represented.”

Jerome Ringo, for one, said that the choice of which African country would host the climate clock was made in two seconds.

Nigeria and Nigerians, he claims, have the ability to develop or solve climate change problems, necessitating the Federal Government’s leadership and harnessing of these potentials.

“I recognize that Nigeria is the largest economy on the planet and a lot of innovative youths roam the country. But what really drove me the most about bringing the clock to Nigeria is not where the country is now, but where it is going.

“Nigeria is on a threshold of being the catalyst to begin the movement like no other country in the world. Why, because you suffer the most adverse effects to climate change, it is not the fault of the African people, it is a call to rise and take action towards climate change,” he said.

He added that the same clocks are in the White House in US and three European countries, thus making Nigeria among the privileged.