Kuramo Demolition for Sustainable Development?

Photo by Tina Armstrong

by Tina Armstrong-Ogbonna

LAGOS – NIGERIA “If I was told that I would again be evicted and rendered jobless I would doubt that. But look how I have been brought to square-one”. This was the lamentation of Mrs. Kemi Moshood, one of the many business operators at the Kuramo beach in Lagos, Nigeria. On the 18^th of August 2012. The Atlantic Ocean charged into Kuramo community that hosts one of the popular beaches in the Lagos, Island-The Kuramo beach. The Ocean surge occurred at about 2am when most residents in the community were sleeping. The beach is an anticipated tourist center for the Lagos State Government but until the recent ocean surge, it was home to fun seekers, miscreants and urchins.After the surge no fewer than about sixteen people were declared missing but one body was recovered that day. Later that day the Lagos state government ordered all occupiers of the beach to vacate, according to government this was to prevent further loss of lives.

Green Liberationist

Last week a ten year old boy was killed after a rocket was fired at a school in the Nigerian city of Jos. 

Over one hundred more people have been killed in the past two weeks amid the ongoing ethno-religious violence in across Plateau State, of which Jos is the capital.

Responses and accusations have abounded over the political and cultural reasons for the violence but little attention is being paid to one of the chief catalysts behind the conflict: climate change.

Climate change is a driver of conflict.  Scarcity of resources, be they farmable land, water or livestock, is creating mass migrations and antagonising pre-existing tensions in a vicious circle.

Variability in food production and prices leads to social unrest while social unrest itself exacerbates the instability in food production and local investment.  This cyclical crisis is evident in Plateau State and beyond in the Sahel region of West…

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