Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt
Government authorities, policymakers, educators, and environmental stakeholders have been urged to embrace environmental education (EE) as the fourth pillar of ecological governance, to tackle Nigeria’s worsening environmental challenges.
The Director of Planning, Research and Statistics of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Dr. Patterson Ogon, made the call while delivering the lead paper at the Environmental Education Summit organised by the Department of Adult and Non-Formal Education, Faculty of Education, University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, yesterday.
Speaking on the theme: ‘Environmental Education as a Strategic Response to Nigeria’s Environmental Polycrisis: Stakeholder Responsibilities, Delivery Approaches and a Roadmap for Ecological Governance’, Ogon argued that environmental laws and enforcement alone cannot reverse the country’s ecological decline without a corresponding shift in public knowledge, values, and leadership orientation.
“At the centre of this rather complex and disturbing environmental crisis we face today is leadership. Sophistry is not scholarship. An environmentally uninformed leadership is a disaster waiting to happen,” he said.
