Six million Nigerians might be submerged

Nigerian Tribune: Over six million Nigerians may soon be submerged if the Federal Government fails to control the effect of the present climate change in the country, an environmental chemist, Professor Babajide Alo, of the University of Lagos, has said. He raised the alarm at the weekend in a presentation entitled “Business opportunity in Carbon Trade in Developing Economy: Lagos State as a case study,” to mark the World Environment Day in Lagos.

Alo, who was the guest lecturer, said that with Nigeria having a population of about 140 million and spread over an approximate landmass of 924,000 square kilometres, it would be potentially catastrophic for the country to experience the negative impact of climate change. According to him, more than a fifth of Nigerians could be under water with a one metre rise in sea levels, a possibility that might occur in a few decades.

He stated that migration, resulting from either lack of arable land to cultivate or from coastal submergence, was capable of initiating social frictions among the populations, adding, “given Nigeria’s vulnerabilities to the impact of climate change, the country will be worst hit should the present trend of warming continue unabated.”…

Lagos Island and part of Lagos Harbour, taken from close to Victoria Island, looking northwest. Photo by Benji Robertson, Wikimedia Commons via world66, under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 1.0 License