Hon Sam Onuigbo


"No one should be left behind, this energy transition must be just, fair, inclusive, and above all have a human face."

Sponsor of the Climate Change Bill in Nigeria’s National Assembly, and member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Sam Onuigbo,  member representing Ikwuano/Umuahia North and Umuahia South Federal Constituency of Abia State,  and Chairman, Climate Parliament Nigeria, while addressing participants at the GLOBE COP26 Summit at the Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh, on the 5th of November, expressed  worries on the impacts of climate change across the world and its increasing damage to human livelihood.

The lawmaker while discussing the need to give extensive attention to the devastating issue of climate change persuaded world leaders and every citizen to join the fight to save the world from the devastating impacts of climate change.

It is noteworthy that over the years climate change has been one of the most discussed issues across the globe. In Nigeria, Hon. Onuigbo, who is  also  the President, GLOBE Nigeria,   continuously championed the cause from a legislator’s point of view, collaborating with stakeholders on numerous occasions to brainstorm on how to address the existential threat of climate change in Nigeria. 

 Onuigbo’s presentation at the Scottish Parliament addressed the issues of Net Zero Laws, NDCs and Green Recovery from the Nigerian perspective while hinting at the security implications of climate change in the country as visible from the Sahel Challenge: 

"I'll speak briefly actually from the Nigerian perspective on the issues of Net Zero Laws, NDCs, Green Recovery, and like she said how we can get it right but this one is strictly from the Nigerian angle. Nigeria as some of You are aware is from Western Africa and as today the population is about two hundred and eleven million people and out of this number about 60% of that are very young people who are raring to move.” 

Speaking further,  Hon Onuigbo, equally the  Vice-President (Africa) GLOBE International averred  that Nigeria’s population and its demographic spread is a blessing as it makes the country an investor’s haven. His words:

"At first instance or glance You are likely to see that as a kind of time bomb, but when you look at it from the reverse side you will again appreciate that this is an investor’s haven that we are looking at and I'm saying that bearing in mind what happened when we did privatization of the telecommunications industry. We encouraged some of the established telecommunications firms to come and join in the privatization exercise in the early 2000s but they considered it a risky business but those who took the chance, eventually realized that with Nigeria’s population, the country is an investor’s haven.

According to him: “The crisis coming from the Sahel and I’m talking about areas bordering Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, coming down to Chad that is now largely a difficult area to inhabit because desertification, drought and the rest of them have combined to make those places very difficult to farm or to do agriculture. Consequently, we see a push from there down to the Northern part of Nigeria and this has disrupted a lot of things bringing with it insecurity, and loss of livelihood means.”

On the issue of Nigeria attaining net zero GHG emissions by 2060, the lawmaker drew attention to the fact that Nigeria is an oil and gas based economy and thus the transition must be done in such a way as to avoid the issue of stranded assets. 

He therefore advised that in attaining net zero, it must be done in such a way that the transition does not create poverty, hunger, crises, and other issues: 

“It is a difficult journey, and we are sadly almost out of time. So, the time to act and act decisively is now. In all this, I must stress that in line with the Sustainable Development Goal 17 which talks about partnerships for sustainable development, and ultimately stresses that no one should be left behind, this transition must be just, fair, inclusive, and above all must have a human face,” he concluded.