The Ecological Project Office said it was currently in possession of over 5,000 requests from disaster-ravaged communities across the country seeking the federal government’s urgent attention.
The agency’s Permanent Secretary, Mallam Shehu Ibrahim, disclosed this during an interactive session with the leadership of the Senate yesterday at the National Assembly.
He said the monthly N3bn allocation to his agency was grossly inadequate to tackle the requests it gets on a daily basis.
He therefore sought the Senate’s support in getting financial support from international donors to respond to the requests.
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Senate President Godswill Akpabio urged the agency to channel the ecological funds to tackle environmental issues that are life-threatening.
He cited the case of the ocean surge that is currently ravaging five states in southern Nigeria and the massive desert encroachment of the Lake Chad basin.
Akpabio promised that the Senate would carry out necessary legislative actions to assist the ecological office to perform well.
He said, “The method of intervening and selection of projects must be such that they will put urgency outside the normal data they are working with.
“The Ecological Office should attend to the most urgent situations that are likely to affect the lives of the people before it goes to the ones that may not affect lives. Those that are life-threatening should be selected first,” he said.
