Buhari urges National Assembly to domesticate Lake Chad Basin water charter

President Muhammadu Buhari has urged the National Assembly to domesticate the Lake Chad Basin water charter, adopted by heads of states and government summit in 2012.

The Lake Chad Water Charter is a document setting out the rights, obligations, duties, restrictions, processes and procedures pertaining to proper management of the Lake Chad resources. The document, which is awaiting final approval by the National Assembly, becomes the first legal instrument after the 1964 Fort Lamy Convention to be collectively assented to by the highest political authorities as a binding document to cover the entire Lake Chad Basin.

Speaking while receiving an environmental audit on the drying up of the Lake Chad, on Monday, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Buhari commended the resolution of the African Organisation of Supreme Audit Institution working group on environmental auditing that led to the audit.

As a member of the Lake Chad Basin Commission summit of heads of states and government, Nigeria has been giving maximum support to the Lake Chad Basin Commission to ensure the discharge of its mandates.

“Since the audit report has been fully submitted to the Lake Chad Basin Commission of Heads of States and Government, we will ensure that recommendations are considered for implementation. I will urge our National Assembly to domestic this all-important Lake Chad Basin Water Charter.

“I hope to strengthen the platform to ensure sustainable and equitable water resources management based on integrated industrial principles. I acknowledge that the office of the Auditor-General for the Federation could carry out effective re-organisation to perform specialised audit based on international best practices. Without sufficient funds, I will therefore do everything possible within the law to ensure that you succeed,” the President said.

Presenting the audit report, Samuel Ukura, auditor-general of the Federation, said the key message of the National Audit Report of Nigeria was that Lake Chad was drying up very fast, from 25,000sq.km in 1963 to just 1,500sq.km as at present, saying “we must save Lake Chad from extinction.”

The audit reports a weak control of human activities on the issue of water resources in the Lake Chad Basin, for instance, excessive extraction of water, dam constructions, diversions of rivers, etc.

He noted that a significant part of the increasing population from 30 million to about 47 million had to move south in search of alternative livelihoods. Millions of fishing and pastoralist population are worst affected by the shrinking Lake Chad.

Buhari said he had presented an article by a University of London professor to the former president and he had taken the initiative to institute an audit. “He gave $5 million to the study, and the study was that unless some of the rivers from the Central Africa Republic are diverted to empty into Chad Basin, Lake Chad will dry up.

“I understand that this report which was sponsored by Nigeria has been submitted. I am a bit disappointed that in the speech of the auditor-general, there was no mention of this report whether my own report was correct: that $5 million was given.

“One of the recommendations was that at the time the report was submitted, the cost of diverting one of the rivers to empty into Lake Chad would be between $13 billion and $15 billion. I think this government will like to see this report and see how we can ask our foreign friends how they can help us,” he said.

In response, the Representative of LCBC, Sanusi Abdullahi, said the report had since been handed out to the public, with an estimate of $14.5billion. “We have been consulting the Congo Basin to allay their fears on the environmental impact assessment they want us to add and we need some additional political support to b able to convince them that it is also in their interest to see that this water is diverted to Lake Chad.

We have mad effort with the Champion of Save Lake Chad, former President Obasanjo to sensitize the international community, particular Europe whom we perceived have some unfriendly attitude towards the transfer.”