The federal government has said over six million people have been displaced in Nigeria by climate events and disasters between 2008 and 2021.
The Federal Commissioner, National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI), Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, disclosed this at the National Migration Dialogue in Abuja on Thursday.
While quoting reports by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), she said the country had experienced 131 climate disasters within the period.
She added that the figure was above the 4.4 million people displaced by conflicts.
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Sulaiman-Ibrahim said, “There is no gainsaying that climate change and climate events have continued to take a toll on communities across Nigeria and the world at large, bringing the issue to the front burner of the global migration dialogue.
“This year’s theme, ‘Accelerating Climate Adaptation in Displacement and Human Mobility in Nigeria,’ is thus aptly designed, to interrogate the impact of climate change and climate events on various communities across Nigeria, as well as existing adaptation efforts by government and the local population to cope with these events.
“The ongoing desertification in the North East, erosion in the South East and the ubiquitous flooding have led to displacement and increase in the migration of Nigerians from their habitual places of residence to other parts of the country and across international boundaries.”
Earlier, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajia Sadiya Umar-Farouq, said the government had shown great commitment towards managing climate change by spending 9 per cent of the GDP on projects directly addressing climate change.
“In 2021, Nigeria became the first country in Africa to design a detailed Energy Transition Plan, with a view to delivering universal access to energy by 2030, and we continue to take decisive steps to mitigate the impact of climate change,” she said.
Speaking at the occasion, the Chief of Mission of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), Laurent De Boeck, advocated community-led solutions, including nature-based solutions that could support the adaptation of communities to climate change.
“We believe that this would inform the adoption of adequate strategies for minimization, with a view to proffering practical solutions and interventions that should be considered including for future revision of the National Migration Policy,” he said.
