The Nasarawa State House of Assembly has been called upon to ensure the speedy passage of the bill on Climate Change in order to address climate change issues.
State Coordinator of Advocacy for Women with Disabilities, Mrs Asaba Averson made the call at an event organised by Beacon Youth Initiative (BYI) in collaboration with Education as a Vaccine (EVA) to celebrate International Women’s Day on Thursday.
She stated that the bill on Climate Change in Nasarawa State has passed its second reading and behoves on the Nasarawa State Assembly to fast-track the process and pass it into law.
The Coordinator said there was absolute need for climate justice to be instituted in the state, explaining that women, particularly girls and women with disabilities, were those who are mostly affected by climate change.
“The issue of climate change concerns everybody, and women are the most affected. We are promoting the issue of climate justice in the state.
“This will enable the government to address the challenges of climate change that women are facing. Climate change does not only affect women but also affects girls and women with disabilities, who are the most impacted negatively,” Averson explained.
She called on women to take action by advocating for climate change policies to address its many challenges.
“I therefore call on the Nasarawa State Assembly to pass the bill into law since it has already passed its second reading,” she said.
Also speaking, the State Chairperson, Small-scale Women Farmers Organisation in Nigeria (SWOFON), Mrs Jummai Yohana, called on the government to provide women with support to boost their farming activities.
“We want the government to assist us because we are the less privileged compared to the men, especially women with disabilities,” Yohana said.
She listed some of the challenges facing small-scale women farmers, including lack of farm inputs like seedlings, fertilisers, and herbicides, as well as inadequate income to boost their farming activities.
Yohana also highlighted the impact of climate change on their farming activities, citing the lack of rain to cultivate crops as another major challenge.
“We lack rain to cultivate our crops, and this has become one of our major challenges,” Yohana explained.
On her part, President of Market Women Association in the State, Hajiya Hadiza Sabo, stressed the need for the State government to increase the number of women in governance, saying that women are not adequately represented in the cabinet.
“We want the state government to increase what they are already doing. Though we have women in the cabinet, they are not enough,” she said.
She stated that increasing women’s representation in governance would enable women to implement policies that support women’s empowerment.
Speaking earlier, the Executive Director of BYI, Mr. Emmanuel Okolo, said the state bill on Climate Change seeks to provide a framework for an effective and progressive response to the urgent threat of climate change, achieve reduction in greenhouse gas emission.
Okolo further explained that the bill, if passed into law, would build climate resilience and promote inclusive green growth and sustainable economic development by ensuring that the State formulates programmes for achieving its long-term goals on climate change adaptation and mitigation, among other issues.
He further stated that his organisation, in partnership with EVA, was implementing the African Activists for Climate Justice (AACJ) with support from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to achieve climate justice.
Okolo said that the event was to commemorate International Women’s Day 2025 while accelerating actions towards achieving climate justice.
“We want to see how women in Nasarawa State can be involved in discussions surrounding the State Climate Change Policy and they can push for inclusion and also participate in the implementation when it is finally enacted as a law and assented to by Governor, Abdullahi Sule,” he said.
He, therefore, called on the state government to come up with strategies that will mitigate the impacts of climate change in the state.
