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Senator Shagaya :hero of the Climate
Change Movement
in
Nigeria
By Ejike Umunnabuike Jr Posted
Wed Dec 21,2011
John Shagaya
Revisiting The Copenhagen 2009 United Nations World Climate
Change Summit:…How Senator Shagaya’s Intellectual Property Input
Provided Nigeria With A Strong Advocacy Platform Through His
National Climate Change Commission Bill
The current climate change awareness creation fever, has now
become all –comers’ affair in Nigeria.Besides, it has either by
accident or design, thrown up some values, norms and issues,
which require some form of contextualization and perspective
evaluation.
This has prompted …. some instinctual reaction processes from
both the informed and uninformed.
These classes of persons have developed sudden instinctual urges
in making some unstructured input-processes or the other for
mere institutional relevance in respect of climate change.
In doing this, these sub-population of persons and allied groups
have seen the topical issue of the global stimulus of climate
change as a plank for attracting institutional attention without
even understanding what the subject is all about.
Listening to some lack-luster broadcast media discussions by
some discussants in Nigeria, one is presented with alternative
view-points that do not have direct bearings ..in the
articulation of values and issues which define, shape and set
the tone for Nigeria’s contributions to the global climate
change question.
Like any Nigeria “phenomenon” that has the affinity for
attracting some imprinting effects through the twin –
sociological concept of social facilitation effects and group
dynamics, modeling adult-examples, new Non–Governmental
Organizations and sundry groups have sprung up appreciating the
issue of CLIMATE CHANGE as veritable source of “business” rather
than looking at it from the point of view of adding intellectual
value to the development of mankind.
In the year 2009, ministry officials in Nigeria, were all
struggling to make the list of those billed to travel to the
COPENHAGAN 2009 UNITED NATIONS WORLD CLIMATE CHANGE SUMMIT, in
order to attract some estacode funding out of the trip to
Copenhagen and not that they have anything substantial to offer
towards the intellectual infrastructure that the global summit
will entail.
But luckily enough, Nigeria has an institutional framework
through which her impact was felt at the Copenhagen 2009 United
Nations Climate Change Summit.
This has come by way of having a National Bill on the
establishment of a NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE COMMISSION, sponsored
and authored by Distinguished Senator John Nanzip Shagaya,
representing Plateau South Senatorial District in the National
Assembly.
The Bill went through its First, Second, Third Readings and
eventually passed on the 15th December, 2007, 31st
January, 2008 and 22nd July, 2009 respectively
setting the agenda for espousing Nigeria’s official position at
the crucial world meet in Copenhagen, Denmark next week besides
providing us with a strong advocacy tool.
As stakeholders gathered in Copenhagen Denmark, from December 7,
2009 to 20th ,2009, to proffer sustainable solutions
to the emerging challenges posed by the social problem of
climate change, it was instructive to note that at the inception
of conceptualizing the novel idea of authoring and sponsoring a
climate change bill in Nigeria by Senator Shagaya, it attracted
the attention of world nations particularly America, Britain and
Canada.
The cheering news arising out of their observatory participation
in the public hearing held by the Senate at the Senate Hearing
Room 1, on May 15, 2008, the importance of the climate change
puzzle brought home the role –expectation and role – performance
which the twin – concept of economic development and
international political interests’ aggregation can play in
ensuring a safer global milieu for mankind.
By the year 2012, the existing articles and binding principles
of compliance on the KYOTO PROTOCOL and allied CONVENTIONS on
all nations of the world would have lapsed.
What this means by implication is that, a new set of protocols
and conventions would have been put in place thus replacing the
existing provisions in the old order.
The National Climate Change Commission Bill, in Nigeria’s Upper
Chamber of the National Assembly, – THE SENATE, witnessed its
FIRST READING, on December 15th, 2007.
Since then, this reporter has been keeping a tab on the
legislative processes as well as the public interests’
aggregation input mechanisms which had defined, shaped and
dictated the pattern of debates and alternative views that
characterized the conceptualization, initiation and reasons for
the sponsorship if the Bill.
He had, also done same in the lead to sensitize the Nigerian
populace on the derivable value as well as the degree of
importance of these physical geographical phenomena that had
taken the world by storm.
This is in terms of the spirally-compelling influences which had
thrown up emerging concerns ostensibly engaging all countries of
the world. Distinguished Senator John Nanzip Shagaya OFR, can
best be described as the unsung hero of the Climate Change
Campaign Drive.
Senator Shagaya told The
Headliners, “My Bill on the National Climate Change
Commission is my in- put to National Development of my country,
Nigeria.”
Senator John Nanzip Shagaya OFR had said that, one of his
greatest achievements as a federal lawmaker is his intellectual
property input ploughed into his National Climate Change
Commission Bill, now awaiting the President’s assent after
formal harmonization by the National Assembly.Senator Shagaya,
who represents the Plateau South Senatorial District in the
National Assembly, Abuja, stated this in an exclusive interview
with this reporter.
He said he was spurred towards putting the bill together
ploughing his military science experiences as a soldier, which
offered him the plank to conceptualize the proposal of the Bill,
which now required formal assent from(then) President Umar Musa
Yar’adua.
Senator Shagaya, a key principal officer and influence molder in
the President Ibrahim Babaginda administration, said that the
coming alive of the climate change bill is one issue that
gladdens his heart.
Essentially, the bill to establish the National Climate Change
Commission went through the normative legislative first and
second readings on the 28th of December, 2007, and the 31st
December, 2008 respectively before the third reading.
The bill also successfully passed through a public hearing which
was well attended by experts from various walks of life across
the globe.
Summary submission which the bill covers include:
• The absence of policy directions and a defined leadership
positioning on CLIMATE CHANGE in Nigeria, requiring legislation
that will support Nigerians stand in response to the global
stimulus posed by the geographical puzzle.
• The lack of early warning systems for detecting natural
disasters in a vulnerable country like ours, which calls for an
institutional endorsement.
• To seek appropriate intervention mechanisms to be instituted
with a view to addressing the social problem prevailing in the
most populous and vulnerable black nation in the world as well
as others.
• The global climate change phenomenon has prompted countries
like the United States of America and Britain to pass their own
Bills on the establishment of the climate change agencies.
• Only last year, precisely on October 10, 2008, the British
Government created a Ministry of climate change besides
appointing a minister to specifically man the ministry.
By this Bill, Senator Shagaya has become the hero of the climate
change dream in Nigeria.
This he explained, would help harmonize all the activities that
relate with climate change as an emerging global phenomenon that
requires the skilled knowledge – base of experts in the physical
scientific domains of climatology, urban and regional geography,
biodiversity and allied multi-disciplinary concerns.
Shagaya, a former ECOMOG FIELD COMMANDER in both Liberia and
Sierra Lone, who created a neat record as the only military
officer who led troops to these countries on peace-keeping
operations without losing any human casualties, fell in love
with climate change dynamics long before it became a dominant
global issue of interests’ aggregation.
NIGERIA’S RESPONSE TO GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE STIMULUS: HOW
SENATOR SHAGAYA, COMPARED NOTES WITH WORLD LAWMAKERS AT A 92-
MEMBER NATIONS AT THE WASHINGTON D.C. USA- ROUNDTABLE BETWEEN
OCTOBER 21ST – 24TH, 2009,AHEAD OF THE
DECEMBER SUMMIT.
That Nigeria is proactively responding to the global stimulus of
CLIMATE CHANGE PUZZLE, which now create ripples among world
leaders and Heads of Government and across countries is not in
doubt.
Ejike Umunnabuike Jr. of
THE COSMOPOLITAN, Nigeria
wrote this piece for Skiesnewsmagazineonline
Th
This is the document referred to in the Witness
Statement on Oath of Clifford O. Kokogho as
“Exhibit
CO
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