We need targeted investments to prevent floods and droughts – Moghalu

Nigeria’s next president needs to make targeted investments to prevent floods and droughts. This was disclosed by Kingsley Moghalu during his interview on Arise TV on Monday, November 21.

In the interview, Moghalu said every year, Nigeria is prone to drought and floods, especially the latter, and nothing has been done to put a stop to it, while people are losing lives and livelihoods whenever this happens.

He said climate change impacts must be managed effectively, and this can be done through targeted investments.

Cycle of poverty: In a policy paper that Moghalu developed in collaboration with Damian Ude, an economist, it was stated that climate change contributes to the cycle of poverty in various ways, including by disproportionately harming women, producing refugees, and even inciting violence.

Climate change also causes hunger through either too little (drought) or too much (flooding) water.

However, in his interview on Arise TV, Moghalu said it is important that Nigeria becomes a prosperous nation first before setting goals that will effectively tackle issues with climate change and all other challenges that abound in the country.

In a related development, the Labour Party presidential hopeful, Peter Obi made a guest appearance at the Lagos Business School alumni conference on November 15. During his speech, he said the impact of climate change on Nigeria is quite severe.

He was of the opinion that aside from causing excessive rainfall, flash floods, landslides, and gully erosion, climate change also affects Nigeria’s food production, forestry, and related costs of building and furniture materials. However, he stated that the country contributes to climate change, even if minimally, through natural gas flaring, which has to stop.

In a 2020 report by the World Bank, it was highlighted that up to 132 million people would be pushed into poverty by 2030. The report went further to state that sub-Saharan Africa could have up to 39.7 million more people pushed into extreme poverty by 2030.

For the record: In 2021, Nigeria passed the Climate Change Act, which provides a framework for Nigeria to achieve low greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through inclusive green growth and sustainable economic development and the implementation of Nigeria’s commitment to net zero emissions declared at COP26 in 2021.

Nairametrics had earlier reported that the federal government, through the ministry of environment had budgeted over N2.5 billion for new projects associated with flood prevention and management in the proposed 2023 budget.

It is instructive to note that 1.4 million people are estimated to have been affected by the 2022 flooding in Nigeria and over 600 people have lost their lives in floods across different states of the federation.



FI