EcoPivot

In May 2024, the Nasarawa State Government, Aerthmetal, and Boxmoor signed a tripartite agreement to establish Uke Gold Company. The Abdullahi Sule-led administration said that the company would boost revenue and create jobs. Since then, residents say both licensed and unlicensed miners have invaded the district. According to locals, the miners, many of them non-natives and nationals from other West African countries, operate with heavy arms.

On proposed completion in 2030, the Great Green Wall is expected to be the largest living structure on the planet, three times the size of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

When Emmanuel Aremu, a 30-year-old climate enthusiast, met a teenage girl dumping waste into the drainage system around Dennis Memorial Grammar School Roundabout, Onitsha, he could have just walked by. But something in him refused to ignore it. Curiosity and a sense of responsibility made him pause and ask, “Do you know this is wrong? Who asked you to do this?” The girl, sent by her guardian, confessed that she had no idea it was harmful.

From a distance, black smoke spirals into the air. Closer, a pungent smell becomes sharp and real. A little further on, 63-year-old Sikiru Lawal, a rural farmer based in Ile-Ife, sweats as he clears his farmland of weeds. Beside him lies a heap of gathered plant debris, already drying under the sun. But it is not this pile that sends the smoke into the sky.

Nigeria is one of the richest oil-producing nations in the world, yet millions of its citizens cook with firewood. Some rely on firewood for family meals, while others use it to serve their customers. As a local food vendor, Chinyere Onuigbo falls under the latter. For over twenty years as a food vendor in Abuja, she had cooked this way: firewood stacked high, flames licking the bottom of her aluminum pots, the scent of burning wood clinging to her clothes.

The sun burned over Lokotiye, a small community in Nasarawa State. Aisha Isah, 42, stood by her well, squinting into the dark, dry hole. The pumping machine hummed faintly, then fell silent. The water level was too low for it to draw anything up. What little remained smelled stale and sour, a clear sign that the rains were long gone and the dry season had arrived. For Aisha, a mother of three and full-time housewife, the struggle for water was more than frustrating.

Often, 25-year-old Alex could be seen at Obafemi Awolowo University in Southwestern Nigeria shovelling waste from the dump house adjacent to the school’s Health Centre. The waste would then be loaded into a big gold-white painted truck parked nearby. Sometimes, his job appeared easier because all the waste would be in the dump house. But months ago, the situation was worse. Scraps of paper, nylon, and plastics littered the area around a rusting, thatched metallic waste bin.

Oyindamola, a 200-level Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) student, stared blankly when asked about climate change. At first, she said, “I don’t know,” but after a few minutes, with more uncertainty, she responded, “Maybe when the atmosphere has been tampered with in such a way that it now affects the weather.“ Her initial response suggested a rough understanding, but misconceptions became apparent as she explained.

Entrance of the Zoo Estate, Enugu, south-east Nigeria As a child growing up in Warri, Delta state, Ambrose Igboke was regaled with folktales of tortoise mischief, wisdom, and longevity. The lion was always touted as the king of the forest. So, whenever he travelled with his uncle to his village in Enugu, Nigeria’s south-east zone, they would stop at the massive zoological garden in the state to see the tortoise and other animals.

Under the hot midday sun, Agye Agye, a Nigerian man in his forties, straddles his battered okada. As his fingers grip the handlebars, slick with perspiration, he rides through the roads of Arab (Orozo), a Sahelian-hot, semi-arid urban poor area of Abuja. He pulls over whenever customers wave him down, engaging in a brief haggle over fare, and sometimes, wiping his brow with his arm and motioning for them to hop on.