Wangari Maathai, a Nobel Laureate has urged African leaders to move faster to protect the environment. 

Maathai even went to the point of berating leaders for neglecting the environment and focusing on security instead, which she felt had yet to yield results in the conflicts on the continent.

She accused African leaders of being very slow on the problem generated by desertification of the continent, saying until recently when the issue of environment had become global issue, “the various countries relegated environment issues to the background.”

According to her, “They have been too slow, though I will not blame them, but in the last 30 years if much attention has been given, we would have gone far ahead and not the present predicament we are faced with.”

African leaders give “priority to security, which over the years have not brought about any positive change in the conflicts in different parts of the continent. A ministry of environment is seen more as punishing the minister,
but this should not be so, we are saying that environment issue should be given more attention and priority,” insists Maathai.  

The Nobel Laureate's comments coincided with former President Olusegun Obasanjo's acknowledgment that encroachment, illegal logging and unplanned state policy on forest exploitation resultingi n reckless issuance permits had been major barrier to effective conservation of the country’s forestry.

Maathai and Obasanjo spoke at the opening ceremony of a workshop on Afforestation and Climate Change in Africa, organised by the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) Centre for Human Security in Abeokuta.  THE END.