by Fatima Saka
Minister of Environment Alhaji Balarabe Abbas Lawal has said that the biggest challenge facing the Great Green Wall is insecurity.
Alhaji Lawal stressed that this has hampered the effort of planting trees that the ministry is supposed to plant.
The minister revealed this recently during the budget presentation of the Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Representatives on Defence of the 2023 Budget Performance and 2024 Proposals.
Alhaji Lawal further stressed that the insecurities challenges confronting the northeast and northwest, adding that there is strong need for the government to enforce the forces by taking care of the forest.
“We are thinking of coming up with a unit that we can, out of our park ranges, that will now address the issue of people of bad habits habitation in the forest. That’s why I feel that we are working, we are going to work very closely with the Minister of Defense and the Minister of Forest Affairs to see what we can do to make sure our forests are well guarded.
*If you are going to cut any tree now in Nigeria, you need to get permission from the state government or sometimes from the local authorities.
“But they do it at will because nobody can go there and stop them,” the minister said.
