Lamido and his 70,000 stoves

In addition to the many socio-economic inadequacies we lament everyday in this nation, energy poverty is now a manifest strongman under which we are struggling in a debilitating stranglehold. Energy poverty – which refers to the situation of large numbers of people in developing countries whose well-being is negatively affected by very low consumption of energy, use of dirty or polluting fuels, and excessive time spent collecting fuel to meet basic needs – is endemic in Nigeria. We do not need to stretch our imagination to see that millions of Nigerians are enmeshed in this web of lack.
The inadequate quantum of power generated by the government and the burgeoning population of the have-nots in our midst have engendered what I call energy vicious circle, thereby worsening our environmental problems: lack or/and high cost of energy drive citizens into felling trees for fuel; felled trees cause deforestation (and desertification); deforestation adds to climate change; climate change worsens the energy crisis. And in all, Nigeria suffers.

Perhaps, Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State has made the fundamental move to truncate this vicious circle in his 70,000 stoves project. There is no better time than now for Nigeria to adopt a launch pad for a sustainable way of fighting climate change, not only in the northern part of the country but in all the other regions. Just as depicted in the popular 1969 Western, ‘‘100 Rifles’’, where Yaqui Joe (played by Burt Reynolds) bought 100 rifles for his people to help them liberate themselves from oppressors, the 70,000 cooking stoves the Jigawa State Government has distributed to the people will serve as a catalyst for climate action to liberate them, and other Nigerians, from climate change. The truth is that no matter the efforts invested by the government in the fight against deforestation and environmental degradation in Nigeria, if the issue of domestic energy poverty is not addressed squarely, all efforts would have that effect of pouring water on a stone to soften it. Domestic energy poverty refers to a situation where a household does not have access or cannot afford to have the basic energy or energy services to achieve day-to-day living requirements. These requirements can change from country to country and region to region; the most common needs are lighting, cooking energy, domestic heating or cooling. For the indigenes of northern Nigeria, cooking energy is definitely the driving need. In search of energy to cook, families will not mind felling even the most sacred tree in the neighbourhood.

As an environmentalist, what I see in the Lamido strategy is a one-switch solution to a two-pronged problem – desertification and carbon emissions. This is in sync with the globally accepted Clean Development Mechanisms initiative, one of the flexibility mechanisms defined in the Kyoto Protocol. In a bid to address the menace of illegal tree felling in the state, the Jigawa State Government is distributing improved cooking stoves to the local communities across the 27 local governments of the state. At the moment, the programme has given out more than 70,000 stoves. Illegal tree felling is a common phenomenon not only in Jigawa State but in the larger part of northern Nigeria. It is also one of the factors leading to desertification quandary. Recent statistics in Jigawa have indicated that per capita wood usage in the state has exceeded one tonne per person per annum, a situation which has become a threat not only to the affected communities, but part of the regional environmental matrix. This is exactly why Nigeria is supporting the Great Green Wall project, an initiative that was initially meant to involve the planting of a 15 km wide transcontinental forest belt running from Dakar to Djibouti, designed to combat desertification, which Lamido also expressed commitment to.

There are two aspects that are of interest in the Jigawa project. These are the dual critical aspects of clean energy and women involvement. To start with, the fact that the stoves are improved means that they are nudging closer to environmental-friendliness; that is, emitting less carbon than the ones commonly found among the populace. If you have travelled in rural Nigeria, you would have seen smoke coming from the small houses and back yards of most families. In fact, it is even common to see wood fires used throughout the cities as well, especially when large quantities of food are being prepared for various purposes, ranging from commercial to entertainment. No doubt, cooking with wood as fuel contributes to family health problems, particularly for women and children, as much as it contributes to deforestation as people cut trees to provide the fuel. In much of sub-Saharan Africa, women and children suffer respiratory and other health issues because of the soot released from traditional cook stoves. This is worsened by the fact that a new study has found that black carbon which is mostly ‘‘soot’’, formed in the combustion of wood and fuels such as diesel and kerosene, is the second most important contributor to global climate change. Therefore, the provision of efficient stoves can never be overstressed as it is a priority in the involvement of the Nigerian grass roots in the fight against climate change. If not anything, this strategy will effectively cut wood fuel use in half.

Secondly, the decision of Lamido to distribute the 70,000 stoves through the Ministry of Women Affairs is another manifestation of the emerging global best practice in climate change issues. It was late last year during the Doha COP 18 that women had a special day in the climate talks for the first time. This novel event was no doubt inspired by the fact that women are among the most vulnerable as regards global warming. The facts are patent. It is widely known that the effects of climate change are not evenly spread out between countries and regions. For example, Africa as a continent is responsible for only 3.8 per cent of global CO2 emissions, yet it is one of the regions suffering most from the devastating impact of climate change. And out of the 1.3 billion people living in conditions of poverty worldwide, 70 per cent are women; and the impact of climate change on the poorest nations on earth will make them still poorer while at the same time widening the societal divide between men and women due to their restricted access to information and resources as well as their limited involvement in decision-making procedures.

Statistics have shown that in sub-Saharan Africa, women are responsible for 70-80 per cent of household food production; it is usually women who gather firewood and draw water from wells. They also play a predominant role in agriculture. It follows that if local natural resources become scarce due to extended drought or flooding, or desertification, it is these women that will work more in order to ensure that the food supply chains of their families remain intact, against all odds. Therefore, clean development mechanism is best channelled to the grass roots through these women. I suggest that Jigawa’s methodology be studied, and the impact analysed, as a blueprint for a broader national environmental intervention paradigm.

I must mention that 70,000 stoves are not enough to offset the environmental imbalance in Nigeria, or even in the north for that matter. Granted, Lamido has shown other environmental-friendly gestures – like mass production of seedlings (which will enhance tree-planting) and implementation of vector control and environmental sanitation law – that are sign posts to his green developmental proclivities, as a nation, I believe we have arrived at that time when green lifestyle should be mainstreamed in the state legislative agenda and executive policy blueprint. It is my belief that when a certain number of states who can constitute a critical mass toe this line, the government at the centre will have no choice but to adapt to this system which will automatically metamorphose into a formal bottom-to-top reticular green paradigm, for the good of the whole nation, and as a legacy for Nigerians yet unborn