Media Awareness and Justice Initiative ,MAJI, a non-governmental organisation, has announced its readiness to deploy 20 air quality monitors to some communities in Akwa Ibom where there is a high rate of air pollution and oil exploration activities happening.
Speaking to journalists on Wednesday at the end of a meeting on Environmental Data Validation in Uyo, the Project Officer for Policy and Governance for Media Awareness and Justice Initiative, Mr. Ikechukwu Aka, said the monitors, when deployed to communities, would gather data on environmental pollution from such communities and their environs real-time.
He explained that gathering data on environmental pollution would equip relevant stakeholders with information needed to make informed decisions that would impact positively on climate adaptation in Nigeria as a whole.
Malta Guinness, TRACE Naija’s ‘In The City’ tour energise campuses across Nigeria
The Project Officer, who disclosed that out of 60 air quality monitors the organisation had acquired, 40 had already been deployed in Lagos and Rivers States where the programme is covering, while the remaining 20 would be deployed in Akwa Ibom as soon as modalities for the identification of high particulate emissions communities were concluded.
” With support from United Nations Democracy Fund ( UNDEF), we were able to deploy 60 devices to the three states – 20 in each. Now, we do not have funds to expand to other states in Nigeria, but we are looking forward to having international support that can help us expand it and have national data on environmental pollution”.
Giving more insights into the reason for the meeting, Mr. Aka stated that it was essentially to gather and build capacity of stakeholders, while also receiving inputs from them to validate the environmental portal which was developed by MAJI, with support from United Nations Democracy Fund.
The Project Officer assured that with the portal which would store information on environmental pollution, particularly air pollution real-time, stakeholders and governments at different levels would be adequately armed with data to carry out climate actions, particularly in areas where this portal would hold high density of environmental pollution data.
” For us, this Environmental Portal Validation Meeting is very key for stakeholders to navigate through the portal, gather information they need for informed decision- making”.
While giving an overview of the organisation’s portal known as datacab.io, Dr. Prince Eze, a senior member of staff of the organisation, emphasized that data sharing was vital to achieving an environmental pollution- free society in Nigeria.
Dr. Eze, who listed the importance of data sharing to include; informing policy trust, informing policy impacts, engaging communities, among others, said based on these, it became expedient to gather data and use them to checkmate environmental pollution in a given community.
He therefore, expressed optimism that stakeholders would be actively involved in the validation of the portal and other commitments which would serve communities in the area of mitigating adverse impacts of environmental pollution through data collection.
The Environmental Portal Validation Meeting also featured a question and contributions session where stakeholder made inputs in the areas of creating awareness in communities, making the portal easily accessible and friendly with persons living with disabilities, involving community- based organisations, among others.
The participants comprised stakeholders from the media, civil society organisations, including persons with disabilities, as well as the Department of Climate Change, Akwa Ibom State Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resources, who had Mr. Kingsley Timothy as a representative.
