Climate is changing but we’re not

By Alabi Williams / posted 18 December 2023

For climate activists who were locked in intense lobby to push for specific deadline on phasing out fossil fuel at COP28, it was a matter of life and death, but not for our bureaucrats who do not care whether heavens fall. For us, it’s all about consumption, corruption and rapacious greed.

We have abandoned our farms to dig out the last drop of crude oil. We are in a dead haste to ramp production but never fast enough to diversify the proceed. We have diminished other sectors that used to be major substitutes for oil.

Others went for real debate and lobby for a fairer deal that will protect their homelands. Pacific Islands and other lowlands are worried about their sinking territories as sea waters are rising. The more drilling activities that are licensed for extractive minerals across the globe, the more carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere. But we don’t seem to comprehend the details because we think we have all the time on earth. After all, we don’t emit enough.

It reflected on the mindset we set out with as we attended COP28 and on the sheer numbers. In an economic season when we should become deliberately conservative and very mindful of wasteful habits, we flooded the Dubai venue with more numbers than we truly needed. We took 1,411 delegates there, with government sponsoring at least, 422 of them. It’s not just the monies that are wasted on recurrent expenditures but the lack of understanding of the times and of the philosophy that underpins the urgency for deliberate climate knowledge and management.

Nigeria has earned $11billion from crude sales for the first five months of 2023, according to data supplied by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Revenue Factsheet. For this same period in 2024, it is projected that Nigeria will earn more, around $29 billion.

The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) said Nigerian earned $394.02 billion from oil and gas from 2011 to 2020. That is just to give us an idea of how much the country has earned from fossil resource. If we have all the numbers put together since we started drilling oil in 1958 or thereabouts, it would become clear how much mother nature has blessed Nigeria.

Let’s add that there are leakages because Nigeria still does not have a clear idea of how much crude she produces. Crude is stolen before shipment to foreign markets. But a lot of money is earned by government, oil companies and smart individuals.

As at Q3, the Central Bank says Nigeria’s Foreign Reserves had dropped to $33.23 billion. The reserves are assets owned by countries to manage debts and back up imports. When it is too low, managers of the economy will resort to delisting items considered not critical from official import list.

Nigeria has been struggling with her reserves because of bad savings culture and over-dependence on crude as main forex earner. The point to ponder is that among OPEC members, Nigeria’s reserves are among the most malnourished. We eat with two hands and have no culture of savings for the future.

There is a Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF), where Nigeria purports to invest surplus oil revenue. It was set up around 2011 with an initial seed of $1billion, and an additional $60 billion. The fund is crawling because what ought to be surplus revenue to regularly beef up the SWF is either stolen or used to pay debts that are not verifiable with projects. Compared to countries of similar and smaller stature, Nigeria’s SWF is a joke. Norway’s is $1058.05 billion; the UAE’s $683.00 billion; Kuwaiti’s $592 billion and Libya’s $66 billion, just as samplers.

Now, COP28 has reached a deal and wants countries to quit carbon emissions by 2050 and substantially transit to renewables. According to Statista Research Department, Nigeria’s renewable capacity as of 2022 is 2.16 megawatts. In 2022, renewable capacity in the UAE was said to be more than two gigawatts. For clarity, experts say one gigawatt is same as 1,000 megawatts. So, Nigeria has a long way to go when it comes to going green. But we’re used to playing catch-up.

As for revenues from fossils, some oil producing countries are working very hard to cut over-dependence on oil and gas. For some, significant shifts have taken place, thanks to pragmatic governance systems that are always projecting into other sources. The risk levels are certainly not the same, even though the pushback at COP28 was spearheaded by oil rich countries. Everybody needs more time to adjust and the race will be for the swiftest and most strategic.

For Nigeria, all appearances point to the fact that the race hasn’t started. Oil and gas remain the major revenue source for yearly budgets, at 70 per cent; and 90 per cent of foreign exchange earnings. For a country that has cultivable arable land of around 34 million hectares, spending N1.9 trillion to import food products in 2022 is not a good strategy. Same for 2021, N2 trillion was spent on importation of food products, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

State governors who control lands do not make investment in agriculture a priority. They do not have deliberate and sustainable programmes to nurture a generation of economic trees that could feed the local industry beyond the 2050s. There is no local industry. But they budget billions for agriculture yearly, with little or nothing to show for it.
For instance, in July, President Bola Tinubu created an Infrastructure Support Fund (IFS) for states and they shared N907 billion to cater to sundry needs, including agriculture, encompassing livestock and ranching solutions. It is not clear how more of these IFS interventions have been shared till date. What is very clear is that food inflation this December has not reflected these disbursements.

Let’s not forget that on August 1, 2023, President Tinubu announced a raft of interventions to allegedly give succour to citizens in response to his government’s austere policies. Of importance to this column is the agricultural support he announced. He said the National Assembly had approved N500 billion for all-year-round farming on 500,000 hectares of farmland. He said N50 billion is to be granted each farm for the production of rice and maize on 150,000 hectares, as response to a so-called state of emergency he declared on food production.

At that time food inflation was at 25.3 per cent. Now, it’s 32.8 per cent. It is not clear who are the farmers that got these sums and in which states the hectares are located. Meaning that the diversification that should drive climate change is not happening yet.

This is an opportunity to remind the President that agriculture is the easier way to go in the race to attain a cleaner economy. It is important that all the pronouncements and disbursements are backed with cash and that by the next harvest season, prices must come down.

Solid minerals is another department in the extractive sector that holds strong promise for the economy. The Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, raised the hopes when he told newsmen in September, on the sidelines at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), that Nigeria was capable of meeting global demand for critical solid minerals. He put the value of Nigeria’s minerals deposit at over $700 billion, in the hope that genuine investors will be interested.

Nigerians were disappointed when the same Alake lamented during his defence of the Ministry’s 2024 budget, last Tuesday, before the House of Representatives that certain ‘powerful Nigerians’ are behind illegal mining and banditry in the country. He said foreigners are among those doing illegal mining and called on the Federal Government to pay close attention to the sector. It is difficult to understand how we want foreign investors to invest in this economy if we cannot deal with bandits and their sponsors. How do we hope to protect investors’ funds? Big joke!

Let the minister and the Federal Government name the so-called powerful Nigerians who are draining the resources of the country. This government was not elected to surrender the country to powerful people.

For climate change to make local sense, let the government fulfill all the promises and pledges to revamp agriculture. Let there be evidence that actual farming is ongoing, not just on paper. President Tinubu must also tackle corruption in the extractive industry. He should not be afraid to go after powerful people, if he means well. Posterity will be kind to those who make uncommon sacrifice to rescue Nigeria.

There is need to pay closer attention to the details of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), for optimum value addition. We have drawn attention of the president to the fact that he has no business cornering the petroleum minister’s portfolio to himself, against the provision of the Act and the Constitution of the Federal Republic (1999).

The President already has too much on his table and the ministry requires dedicated full-time attention. It is not a job that can be delegated. If it were so, the Act could have said so. In other oil producing jurisdictions, where corporate governance is observed, presidents don’t insert themselves in that ministry.

The fact that former presidents Obasanjo and Buhari took over the petroleum ministry when there was no PIA is a different matter. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, former Emir of Kano has again stressed the point. Proceeding with illegality on this matter is already a blight on the sector and an affront on what climate change signifies.Let’s unlearn old and bad habits.

Note: This article was first published by The Guardian.
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