The Nigerian Minister for Environment and a former top UN official, Her Excellency Amina Mohammed, has said that Nigeria has no known statistics for her wildlife population. The Minister stated this at an event to mark the 2016 World Environment Day regretting that Nigeria?s wildlife population has depleted drastically.

According to Punch Newspapers the Minister spoke thus "Today I know that if I put my hand on my heart and somebody says, what is really the status, the statistical figures of wildlife in Nigeria? I'm not sure that I can tell you as the Minister of Environment. And if I am going to say something, is going to be probably ten years old in terms of its information and data.

"So we will develop the capacity to know what the baseline is, what animal is where, which of them is endangered, what we need to do to protect these animals and to increase their population in Nigeria for the sake of the wildlife."

"The activities of man on the environment have increasingly endangered our wildlife in Nigeria. We must reverse the situation by collaborating with all stakeholders and all constituencies of the society. 

"We are all aware that the status of wildlife in Nigeria sadly leaves more to be desired, as the rate of rate of depletion of the population of animals like the elephants, lions, giraffes, leopards, ostriches, etc, is frightening."

She, however, said that her ministry will assume its rightful responsibility in collaboration with relevant government and non-governmental agencies to protect Nigeria?s wildlife species saying that ?In this regard the Ministry of Environment shall be collaborating with other government agencies to address all forms of activities endangering our wildlife. We shall be working with the military, the police, non-governmental agencies, civil society and our communities, as we will all be critical to these efforts."

It comes as a relief to me as I have struggled to actually point out which wildlife species can be found in Nigeria. There is currently no coordination of events or activities regarding wildlife in my country. There are very few wildlife parks and the ones available need some life both in the output of their staff and the species they keep.

However, a study by the National Open University of Nigeria suggests that there are 290 species of mammals and 940 species of birds in Nigeria while Elephants, Rhinos, Giraffes Crocodiles, Gorillas, Monkeys among others are some of the animals that can be found in the country. Nigeria is not known to have Lions or at best have a few. Most of the Lions found here are likely imported. We, sure, need to do more to boost our wildlife and help create jobs and livelihood for people through this avenue.

Source: Punchng, Wikipedia

Photocredit: Punchng.com