$14bn needed to save Lake Chad – Minister

By John Oba
Abuja

About $14 billion is said to be needed to conduct an inter-basin transfer that would help save the Lake Chad Basin from extinction.
Minister of Water Resources, Engr. Suleiman Adamu, state this in a recent interview with Blueprint, adding that there was the need to urgently conduct an inter-basin transfer of water from Congo Basin to the Lake Chad.

He said: “The feasibility study suggested that we need about $14 billion to do the project. None of this countries combine can put up sum amount. So in the process we came up with the idea of national congress on Lake Chad, so that we can bring this problem into international attention, because this is a security issue.
“The security challenges we are having in the north east, substantial part of it still have to do with the drying up of the Lake. The youth there don’t have economic opportunities. We are hoping that before the end of the year, we are going to have an international conference on Lake Chad.

“That conference will want to achieve two things. One is to bring the problem to international attention, so that if and when eventually, we need to do the inter-basin transfer, the international community will be able to support.”
He said the conference would also be used to open up discussions “so scientists can come and really look at the problem may be they would be able to come with a better alternative option.”
“Maybe the conference can provide a form of value engineering or at the end it may result to the satiation that inter-basin transfer remains the only solution.
“This project is a generational project, because the study and planning alone will take years, but eventually it is going to take place. What is important is that something must be done about Lake Chad in the next 20 to 30 years.

“But there is need for series of more studies to be conducted, a more detailed feasibility studies and eventually the design of the project, and now Nigeria has encouraged the signing of an MoU between the Commission and a company from China.”
He also said “Nigeria is also looking at internal inter-basin transfer and that the government has gotten the Chinese company, HEWON, to be able to take water from the Gongola basin into the southern Lake Chad as one of the country’s trans-boarder projects.”

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