‘Why some Nigerians are trapped in America’

Posted by admin Africa & World Politics, Headlines Friday, July 8th, 2011

Nigerian United States based environmental scientist, Dr. Asopuru Okemgbo, has said that life in United States of America is not bed of roses, as immigrants and foreigners have to prove themselves beyond their equals.
Okemgbo, who has been in the US for over 20 years, said the basic needs – water, food, access roads, transportation and energy – are not issues in US, but noted that one has to sweat for every dollar he earns.
In this interview, Okemgbo, who was in Nigeria to deliver some lectures on environmental issues, painted a gloomy picture of the danger of electronic waste in the country.

How has life been in America?
Life in America is good. For African people in America, it is very challenging because you have to prove yourself beyond your equals, in order to come to the top. But there in America, the basic needs – water, food, access road, and transportation – are not issues, but you have to sweat for every dollar you earn.

Are you coming to answer the call by President Jonathan for Nigerians in the Diaspora to return and contribute to the country’s development?
That is part of what I am already doing, before the President message. The world is a global village, which means from anywhere you are, you can contribute your own quarter in your area of interest. I am going to be giving a public lecture on sustainability and the issues associated with them in Nigeria. I am going to be looking at sustainability in the area of environmental impact because sustainability has economic, society and environment issues. I will just be looking a little bit on the environmental aspect, on how Nigeria can look beyond today and leave legacy for Nigerians coming tomorrow.
One of the saddest things I have discovered, while working on this particular presentation, is the World Bank report that an average life span of Nigerian is 48 years. Even though Nigeria is the richest country in Saharan Africa, they have the lowest life expectancy. Nigeria is richer than Ghana by over 64 percent; yet life expectancy in Ghana is 57 years, which is still not good but is better than here. Benin Republic has a higher life expectancy. Why is that so? It is a point of concern, and that is why I am going to be speaking on these issues that affect our own people.

How can you describe the Nigeria environment?
Nigeria is well gifted in every sense of the word; we don’t have hurricanes, tornadoes or others of such things, but we have not made good use of the natural endowment we have in our nation and ignorance has played serious roles in creating health hazard through environmental pollution. For example, Nigeria is the end user of technology and dumping ground, as we have secondhand televisions, computers, dilapidated medical equipment and many other things that are dumped into Nigeria from Europe, China and America. These things get into our soil, water and air, creating medical difficulties. Nigerians don’t have regulated incinerators, where these things can be properly handled and that is the problem. That is e-waste. What of gas flaring? Nigeria has lost billions of Naira on natural gas that the petroleum industry continues to flare. President Jonathan has promised to award contracts to begin to harness and process this natural gas, that has been going up in smokes, to a refined gas and he said it would create about 500, 000 jobs, which will be a good news. This will get a lot of money for our economy to thrive again.
The worst of all these is oil spill. Oil spillages were abandoned without clean up and remediation. We were there when there was the oil spill in America. Then the problem of America became the problem of the world and from the president of America to the last man in that country, every hand was on deck to compensate people who lost their livelihood and to stop the spill and clean it up; that is the kind of thing Nigeria should emulate from America.

What are the implications of secondhand products that are being brought into Nigeri?
The greatest problem is that by the time these secondhand products, popularly called Tokunbos come to Nigeria, they are at their dead end. So, we get them and don’t know how to dispose of them properly. They are toxic mess. For example, electronics contain lead, mercury, acid etc. If these electronic products are thrown into the incinerator that are in the cities, some of these things go into vapour and people breathe them, as particle or toxic gases. They get in to the water and contaminate the fishes we eat and we also drink water containing this toxic materials. Not only that they are seen everywhere and you cannot properly dispose them ad they are very dangerous.

Some diseases that were alien have found themselves in the Nigeria environment, why?
It is partly so, because the environment contributes and Nigerians are living life styles that they were not used to in the past. I recall the kind of food, diet and feeding we received when we were young. Vegetables are our very good food, unlike today that everything is fried. In the past, food was not as much fried as we have it today. There were no soft drinks that people now drink. I think all these increase some of the medical problems we have. It is not only the environment that causes the problem; we have no medical help delivery plan and our hospitals are not properly equipped. Illegal drugs also contribute to the problem and I wish to acknowledge the former NAFDAC boss, Prof. Dora Akunyili, who helped to fight substandard drugs. It is not only environmental pollution; there are other factors; you don’t have proper medical facilities and people are not getting well treated and finally the misplacement of everything that happens. We attribute everything to spiritual problem, but we should remember that demons don’t dump toxic waste in the water, it is human beings that do that.

Recently, Japan had earthquake with nuclear radiation problems and it is feared some of the products that are contaminated would find their ways into Nigeria. How do we guard against this?
Actually, it was in the 80s that we had the first importation of nuclear waste into Nigeria and since then the Federal Government promulgated laws that forbid the importation of nuclear wastes, but if the federal and state environmental protection agencies are not watchful, Nigerians, who are looking for ways to make quick money, may bring this nuclear waste into the nation to create a problem. However, the eyes of the world are on Japan, concerning nuclear related materials. Americans are checking their water everyday, to see if there are signs of any contamination in the water system and they have banned importation of all kinds of seafood from Japan. Nigeria should take a lead from that.

Nigeria was tinkering with the introduction of nuclear energy for generation of electricity and now we have seen the problem of nuclear reactions, especially from Japan. Do you think we are right in bringing it to our economy, especially now that the advance countries are even looking for ways of doing away with it?
Nuclear energy has always been controversial, because it is difficult to manage. If you don’t have the resources to manage it, you better stay away from it. Nuclear power wastes are extremely difficult to deal with, if you don’t have the technological know-how to deal with it. However, nuclear energy is really a good source of energy, but the controversy surrounding it and the difficulty in managing the waste are issues.

All over, the talk is on climate change. What effect has it on Nigeria and Nigerians?
I will be mentioning climate change in my coming lecture on sustainability. It is only an irony that when the global community discusses global change, the question we don’t ask is, what is it for the country that is championing it? The developed nations see that the flaring of natural gases in Nigeria contribute about 0.5% ; yet because there isn’t anything in it for them they did not put the resources and the will to end it. We have seen the effect of global change on Nigeria; we have seen it in different climatic changes we now observe in the country that wasn’t there before. So, Nigeria is affected in various ways.

What should we be doing in this direction?
The first thing to begin with is to hold the polluters accountable. Those who are contributing largely to environmental pollution must be made to pay for clean up and environmental degradation. I know this is a difficult thing to implement, but Nigeria has to start somewhere and stop the flaring of natural gases. The president said he will do that and I know he has greater chances of accomplishing that. Secondly, companies or individuals that spill oil should be held accountable to compensate people who have lost their livelihood and initiate clean up effort of the environment.

We have to find a way of collecting back or buying back this e-waste that we have talked about – these things that are dropped everywhere and anywhere, the cell phones, the computers. Nigerians must watch out for donations from Europe , America and other advanced nations. For laboratory or medical equipment that are donated to us; we should find out whether the spare parts are still available or they have expired and died and then donated to us; we have to deal with that and we don’t have the resources to do that. There are a lot already in the country but there must be a way to bring compliance and enforcement to the existing ones.

Illegal mining in the country specifically solid minerals has been hazardous. A community in Zamfara was almost wiped out by lead poisoning. What should government do on this ?
Nigeria has made progress in getting civilian democratic government and hopefully to begin to participate in rule of law and with that in place, it will be more visible to implement federal laws and make one that will bring the check and balances we need in the country. The Federal Government may seem to be over burdened, but they are not.

It is said that going to America is easier than returning. So, what is your experience?
That is always true, even long time ago when our people were going to Cameroon and they got there to make money and return, you have to really work hard to achieve that. If you go to America and you don’t have good job that will give you enough money to buy your plane ticket back or visit often, then you are trapped. Not only that; there are immigration issues. So some people may have been trapped by immigration problems because if they leave America, they may not return; so they stay put and there are many other things that keep them there; that is why going to America is easier than coming back. I quite agree with that statement.

-Sunwp_posts

Short URL: https://newnigerianpolitics.com/?p=10510

Posted by admin on Jul 8 2011. Filed under Africa & World Politics, Headlines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry