The Chairman, Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology, Senator Bukola Saraki, has raised the alarm over the growing rate of environmental threats of desertification in the North, devastating hydraulic coastal erosion in the East and high level of flooding in the West.

Senator Saraki, in a statement issued in Abuja, maintained that  if serious and urgent steps were not taken by the Federal Government, the country stood the risk of being choked by these environmental hazards.

He added that his committee would ensure that there was a very stringent oversight mechanism on the 2012 budget implementation for the Environment Ministry, its departments and parastatal agencies, noting that the move would ensure that money meant for projects were utilised effectively and efficiently.

According to him, “desertification alone eats up about six kilometres of arable annually in the northern part of the country,” stressing that this year’s Environment Day celebration was significant as it comes at a time of the year when the world is getting prepared for the Earth Summit and when it appears that the European fiscal instability challenge seems to caste a shadow on the celebration.

The celebration, he said, should help in bringing out the growing vulnerability of Africa to environmental challenges, especially climate change and the need for all countries to act positively and fast if a global framework must be created for the tackling of these challenges.

To this end, he said that “in the midst of these challenges, however, Nigeria has great potential to leverage on to create a green economy through clean energy development. Let us resolve to immediately tackle gas flaring and cleaning up of decades of oil spills in the Niger Delta. I ask you all to join hands with us to raise the Nigerian green wall to challenge desertification to a standstill. Let us bring gully erosion to a halt through watershed management and save our collective ecology.”

He added that the committee had initiated a bill on gas flaring prohibition to accelerate the immediate stoppage of gas flaring in the country, just as a bill to deal with oil spills and degradation of the Niger Delta area was initiated through an amendment of the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) Act, 2006.