Nigeria desperately needs to enter into an environmental conservation agreement with Malaysia and Indonesia 

Ayo Akinfe 

(1) Once more the planet needs the help of the  world’s largest black nation Nigeria as we are faced with a climatic and ecological crisis. As should always be the case, the giant of Africa needs to come to the rescue of humanity 

(2) Indonesia and Malaysia have run out of land as the need for socio-economic development has led to them destroying virtually all their tropical rain forest.  Basically, both countries need to relocate their tropical rain forests. As many of you may know, the tropical rain forest have been described as “the lungs of the earth.” If Nigeria does not come to the rescue here, our planet is doomed. I do not see any other option on the cards 

(3) What particularly makes my heart bleed is the fate of this wonderful primate the Bornean orangutan which is now critically endangered. Bornean orangutans only live on the island of Borneo, where their populations have declined by 60%  since 1950. New projections anticipate their numbers will fall another 22% by 2025 to an estimated 47,000 apes

(4) Nigeria has the land to open an orangutan sanctuary in one of our tropical states like Ondo, Edo or Delta and relocate these wonderful beasts there. We really have no choice here as across Borneo, orangutans are hunted and pushed out of their habitats. Even without poaching, the loss of habitat among a slow-breeding species will lead to extinction on its own. Does Nigeria want that on its conscience? 

(5) On the Indonesian island of Sumatra, things are even worse. Sumatra’s rainforests has pushed the Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutans to the edge of total extinction. With fewer than 14,000 Sumatran orangutans and 800 Tapanuli orangutans remaining in the wild, these species are both classified as critically endangered. In fact, the Tapanuli orangutan is the most endangered great ape in the world

(6) Certain crops like cocoa and palm oil need the canopy of the tropical rain forest to grow. It is only a matter of time before Indonesia and Malaysia run out of land to grow them. Nigeria needs to start planning for this eventuality by floating joint venture plantation companies under a plan that provides for the opening of a parallel Nigerian plantation and processing plant for every facility opened in Indonesia or Malaysia. We have the rainforest, they do not

 
(7) When I warn my people that land hunger is a genuine threat to human existence, they appear not to get the message. I hope the Malaysian/Indonesian experience serves as an eye opener. Unless Nigeria expands her land mass by merging with Niger Republic, Cameroon and Benin Republic, we too will face this kind of Malaysia/Indonesia crisis in the future 

(8) Our tropical rain forest states like Ondo, Edo, Delta, Anambra, Ebonyi, Ogun, etc, need to be ringfenced with industrial expansion there limited. No sane people will destroy what is described as the lungs of the earth when they can avoid it by expanding elsewhere. Niger Republic is 80% barren desert, so we can build mega cities, industrial estates, power plants, solar farms, agricultural plantations, etc there without harming anyone one or causing one bit of damage to our planet 

(9) Malaysia for instance is planning to build a $350m solar power plant in Pengerang in its south eastern Johor State. This project is expected to be the largest solar power plant in Southeast Asia with a combined installed capacity of 450MW. It will devastate the environment but they will do it anyway. We can build a plant 10 times that size in the Sahara Desert of Niger Republic without felling even one tree or harming one animal 

(10) I look forward to the governors of our tropical rainforest states getting together and drafting a conservation agreement which they will present to the Malaysians and Indonesians. You know, if the Nigerian Governors Forum was firing on all cylinders, we would not be interested in who is in Aso Rock. It is our governors who are going to get us out of this pandemic-induced economic calamity, not Buhari. Let them start things off with a special tropical rainforest park built in somewhere like Akoko Edo spanning the Edo and Ondo state borders.