Causes and Impacts of Changing Climate In Nigeria

The weather in my country, Nigeria, has gradually changed through the years, and it's quite surprising how we've come this far from what we used to know and are used to. These changes in weather patterns have affected a lot of things, from agriculture to our daily lives and many more. Today I'll be taking a dive into some of the aspects where we've felt the impact of the weather change, the effect, and the way forward in our bid to make our world safe for everyone.

Of course it's obvious that the weather changes here in Nigeria are one of the indications of global climate change issues we've been crying about over the years and seeking ways to combat it for a safer world, and personally, one of the ways I believe this weather pattern has changed in Nigeria is in terms of rain. Unlike before, when we could easily predict the rain and how it's going to fall, the reverse is the case now, as the rain has become inconsistent to the point where weather forecast machine prediction tends to be wrong lately.

This irregularity with rainfall affected farming, and this I noticed because I'm a farmer, and due to the planting of crops regularly, the changes in weather made it difficult for us farmers to track the weather and easily predict when is the right time and season to plant a crop. Even during the dry session when we don't expect rain, you'll experience heavy rainfall that'll affect our crops that aren't supposed to have access to too much water.

On the other hand, this has been felt in terms of the temperature. I remember a few months ago, during the dry season, we were all complaining about the ridiculous level of heat that pleagued us; the temperature was so much compared to how it used to be at that time, and it seems as though I'm in the desert with how rigorous it was. It also took longer for us to enter the raining season, which usually comes around May, but we ended up entering June before rain started.

The last visible impact of the change in weather pattern here in Nigeria that I've noticed is flooding, and this is caused by a rise in sea water level. I live in Lagos, a coastal city, and so we're usually pleagued with flooding, especially recently with consistent rainfall. This leads to a rise in seawater level that then flows into the city, causing flooding and destroying lives and property. This ultimately affects almost everything, from farming to livelihood.

Now, when we want to look at the causes of all these climate changes and weather pattern issues, it's not far-fetched at all. Take, for instance, the world is evolving, leading to more urbanization and development of new cities, leading to filling of the sea to build new cities, ultimately pushing the sea backwards. During storms and heavy rainfall, this usually backfires, and that's why we see flooding in coastal cities and countries.

All of these industries waste chemicals also leave toxic traits behind in terms of emissions, and that's not forgetting that urbanization also leads to deforestation, and the more we cut down trees, the more danger and hash weather we'll be prompt to, so cutting down trees to build new cities or for furniture purposes is one of the reasons for the weather change.

Talking about how to mitigate these issues, I'm not really an expert in this field, but I believe afforestation is one step towards solving this problem. When we plant more trees all around us, it'll make the weather in such places much more pleasant. The same goes for investing in renewable energy, unlike the normal kind of cars we've got now or means of generating electricity like generators that emit toxic gas to society.

Renewal energy like solar would help curb that, and having electricity-powered vehicles will also solve that if normal cars, additional building effects drainage systems would help regulate the water that overflows from the sea, and I think we should desist from trying to gain land from the sea to build new cities; it usually backfires, so to be on the safer side, we should make do with what we've got.

All photos taken and edited on canva.