One of the most heart-warming stories in Nigeria last week was that seven governors, only three of them from Nigeria, met in Maiduguri to push forward with concerted efforts to salvage the Lake Chad Basin. This [once great] water basin covers one million square kilometres, more than the size of Nigeria. It straddles four countries, so the Governor of Niger Republic’s Diffa Province, Governor of Cameroon’s Far North region as well as the Governors of Chad’s Hadjer-Lamis and Lac provinces joined the governors of Nigeria’s Yobe, Borno and Adamawa states to attend the meeting.
I was counting on my fingers regions of Africa that, in recent decades, became synonymous with violence and crises. Count northern Uganda in the days of Lord’s Resistance Army; count Democratic Republic of Congo’s Katanga/Shaba province, Kolwezi and more recently North Kivu province; add to the list Sierra Leone’s border regions straddling Liberia in the heydays of Foday Sankoh; include southern Mozambique in the heydays of South African-sponsored Renamo; include central Angola when Jonas Savimbi’s CIA-supported UNITA reigned supreme; add Zimbabwe’s Ndebele Province during the post-independence civil war of the early 1980s; don’t forget Rwanda, the scene of an epic 1994 genocide; add Ethiopia’s Somali and Amhara regions; don’t forget Sudan’s Darfur region; not to mention South Sudan, where two rounds of civil war lasted for decades before it attained independence; add Algeria when Islamic Salvation Front [FIS] guerillas of the were carrying out mass slaughter; include northern Mali, when Tuareg rebels swept in from the Maghreb; add northern Chad, when the armies of Hissène Habré, Goukouni Waddeye and Abdelkader Kamougue once battled for control. Sadly, add also our own Lake Chad Basin which, in the last 15 years, Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province [ISWAP] turned into another African hell on Earth.
In Lake Chad Basin’s case, most probably, the shrinking of the once mighty lake was the beginning of its problem. In old maps of Africa dating back to the 1950s and 1960s, Lake Chad was a conspicuous presence, nearly as conspicuous on African maps as Lakes Victoria, Tanganyika and Malawi. I was reading recently about the Aral Sea between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Once the size of Lake Victoria at 68,000 km2, it completely dried up two decades ago, with heart-breaking pictures of ships stranded in the sand. Lake Chad has shrunk to one tenth of its size since 1960, with every danger that it could one day disappear like Aral Sea. How can that not be a major disaster for millions of people that for centuries relied on it and its associated rivers and tributaries for water to drink, irrigate farms, raise huge cattle herds and catch fish, hundreds of trucks laden with which left Lake Chad’s shores every day before the onset of Boko Haram?
Fifteen thousand years ago, according to geologists, Lake Chad was so mighty that it covered an area of 400,000 km2 [nearly half of Nigeria’s current land area], had depths of 180 metres and was connected to both Rivers Benue and Niger, through which its waters flowed into the Atlantic. Okay, that was a long time ago but in the late 19th century when White explorers visited it, Lake Chad had a surface area of 28,000 km2. As recently as 1966, its land area was 22,000 km2 which sank to 1,200 km2 in 1994 but is now about 2,200kms. Most of the water comes from the Ubangi-Chari River in Central Africa and Chad, but Komadugu-Yobe river also contributes a small quota.
Don’t forget, 1300 years ago, the great Kanem Empire sprang up to the north east of this lake and was deeply connected to Sudan and North Africa through trade and other exchange. The Borno Empire, of the same roots, later supplanted it to the south west of the Lake. Much more recently in 2009, Abubakar al-Shekawi pretended to succeed them by creating an “Islamic Caliphate” on the same great soil, leading to the greatest ravage this basin has witnessed since the Sudanese warlord and slave trader Rabeh az-Zubair ibn Fadl reigned over it in the late 19th century.
Why has this lake shrunk so much? Three things account for the water level of an African lake, namely rainfall, inflow from rivers and evaporation. Rainfall has reduced in the region; evaporation is high due to high temperatures and inflow from rivers has been severely reduced because they have been dammed for irrigation purposes. Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje said in Maiduguri last week that all hands must be on deck to rechannel water into Lake Chad and end the basin area’s agony. He should know; Ganduje spoke not as APC National Chairman but as a former Executive Secretary of the Lake Chad Basin Commission.
Looks like help is on the way, because the Lake Chad Basin Governors’ Forum for Regional Cooperation on Stabilization, Peacebuilding and Sustainable Development just ended its three-day meeting in Maiduguri, its fifth since 2018. It is an unusual forum, with regional governors of Chad Basin territories from four countries. Its theme was “Rebuilding the Lake Chad Basin: Consolidating Gains, Commitment to Peace, Cross-Border Cooperation, Security and Sustainable Development for a Resilient Community.” Although Yobe State Governor Mai Mala Buni hosted the meeting, it was held at Maiduguri’s Muhammadu Indimi International Conference Centre of the University of Maiduguri for logistic reasons. Participating along with the regional governors was African Union Commission (AUC), United Nations Development Programme [UNDP], civil society organizations, media, embassies, technical and financial partners from the United Nations system, International Support Groups (ISGs) and International Financial Institutions (IFIs). Traditional rulers from all the regions were also brought in; they are a key factor in security, rehabilitation and resettlement efforts.
The key document for discussion at the forum was the Regional Strategy for Stabilisation, Recovery and Resilience of the Areas Affected by Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin Region (RS SRR). This epic document was prepared by LCBC with the help of international development partners. The Governors Forum long ago adopted it and the African Union Peace Commission endorsed it. It is a very comprehensive document that addressed all the Lake Chad Basin’s multi-faceted problems including violence by Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa Province [ISWAP] and associated terrorist groups, millions of refugees, some internally displaced while others are displaced across international boundaries, massive destruction of communities and their facilities and collapse of local and regional economies, on top of environmental problems.
No progress is possible on any aspect of these problems until the insurgents and terrorists are completely eradicated. In the forefront of this effort is the Multinational Joint Task Force [MNJTF], based in Ndjamena with a Nigerian commander, and to which Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Benin Republic have all contributed troops. The forum said efforts by MNJTF and by other national armies and security forces have greatly reduced the threat posed by terrorist groups, enhanced civilian protection and compelled many members of these groups to surrender.
A communique was issued after the Forum’s meeting ended on Friday. Among others, it commended the Governors of the eight most affected territories of the Lake Chad Basin (LCB) in Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria for their steadfast political leadership, unwavering commitment and strong support for the effective implementation of the RS SRR in their respective territories. It said substantial progress was achieved in advancing stabilisation, peace and sustainable development across the LCB region since its formation in May 2018.
There are several major tasks at hand, the communique stated, including strengthening operational capacity of Multinational Joint Task Force, investing in transborder security, ensuring member states effectively occupy Lake Chad islands and control its waterways, neutralising remnants of Boko Haram and ISWAP, and combating illicit trade of arms, drug trafficking and drug abuse. Also needed is the scaling up of effort in climate resilient initiatives and environmental protection, rehabilitation of the Lake Chad Basin ecosystems and biodiversity. The governors also called for establishment of Free Trade Zones in the Lake Chad region to promote cross-border trade and economic connectivity.
Before this meeting thrust the Lake Chad Basin’s dilemma back into the spotlight, it looked like Boko Haram fatigue and the rise of bandits and kidnappers in the North West, had thrown it off the national front burner. The Federal Government never forgot, though, with its whole Army Theatre and numerous other security agencies committed to the war in the region. Vice President Kashim Shettima, the shon of the Borno shoil who opened the meeting on President Bola Tinubu’s behalf, said Nigerian leaders are not at ease because a part of the country is not at ease. If and when the crises of the Lake Chad Basin region are overcome and its full productive potentials are revived, this country would have found a major contributor in its march to the post-oil age.
A lot of the work going forward falls on the shoulders of Mai Mala Buni, the Governor of Yobe State who was elected to chair the trans-national governors’ forum for the next two years. He said in his acceptance speech that “it is imperative that we move beyond dialogue to concrete and collective action” and “ensure that the resolutions adopted here are implemented at all levels.” Complicating Buni’s task is the current strained relations between Nigeria and Niger Republic and the latter’s withdrawal, with two others, from ECOWAS last Thursday. But those issues should never be allowed to impede the governors’ efforts. Without cooperation and collaboration, neither Nigeria nor Niger Republic nor any of the other basin countries will be safe from the menace of terrorists and insurgents or the socio-economic dislocation caused by a shrinking lake.
