By Greg Odogwu
I read the story that former President Olusegun Obasanjo called on Nigerians to adopt renewable energy with mixed feelings. Ordinarily, I should be excited that a high-profile senior citizen is advocating going green but I am not. In as much as he is saying all the right things now, the fact remains that the two-time leader of Nigeria had all the time in the world to drive this resource-filled country in the green direction when he was the president but he missed that golden opportunity.
Why is it that our politicians usually suffer from amnesia when they get into office, only to come out to remember all the things they would have done when they were in power? This is a diagnosis that would immensely help our country. It is not exclusively a presidential malady. From the ward councillor to the state governor, all our leaders are prisoners of their own forgetfulness. I would not conclude that it is contrived mischief because it may actually be a deep-seated psychosomatic condition requiring a simple prescription. Yet, it is time we recognised that this disease is killing us all, vicariously.
Before we examine Obasanjo’s case, let us beam a comparative searchlight on former American President, Barack Obama. Last weekend, he won an Emmy Award, which is one of the world’s biggest accolades for creativity in the entertainment industry. He won the best narrator Emmy for his work on the Netflix documentary series, “Our Great National Parks”—an environmental advocacy audio-visual production. The five-part show features national parks from around the globe. I have seen parts of the film and it is a colourful and inspiring picture to behold.
It is instructive to note that Obama did not win the eco-award because he is a famous politician. He slugged it out with other big names and famous nominees, including the award-winning naturalist, environmentalist and broadcaster, David Attenborough. This simply means that the former president’s achievement in the sector is not a fluke. He has green all over his footprints, in and out of office. If he is telling America to go green, he had already told them while in office as the Commander-in-Chief. If he is telling the world to value and preserve our environment, he did not start today.
In fact, when he was the president of America, he did even more than what he is doing today. That was when he had the real power to effect a global green change and he did not disappoint.
Let us start with his Climate Action Plan, prepared immediately after he entered office in 2008, which proposed a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. It included preserving forests, encouraging the use of alternative fuels and increasing study of climate change. Obama’s last Climate Action Plan, issued in June 2013, included regulations to industry with the ultimate goal of cutting domestic carbon emissions, preparing the US for impending effects of climate change and working internationally to address climate change. Among the regulations outlined in the plan were initiatives to increase natural disaster preparedness, create and improve existing hospitals, and modernise infrastructure to better withstand extreme weather.
The plan supported conservation of land and water resources and developing actionable climate science and encouraged other countries to take action to address climate change, including reducing deforestation and lowering subsidies that increase use of fossil fuels. It specifically mentioned methane, building efficiency, wind, solar and hydroelectricity. Interestingly, Obama directly tasked White House staff members, Heather Zichal and Michelle Patron, with the implementation of the plan. But sadly, on the first day of the presidency of Donald Trump, the White House website announced that Obama’s Climate Action Plan would be eliminated.
Then on March 2017, Trump signed an executive order to officially nullify Obama’s Clean Power Plan in an effort, it said, of reviving the coal industry. The whole world was pained at this ignorant and knee-jerk Trump plan because it was poised to reverse all the mileage gained by the international community in the fight against climate change. Thankfully, in January 2021, on the inauguration day of US President Joe Biden, Trump’s executive order was revoked by the executive order “Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis,” thereby re-instating the Obama Climate Action Plan.
