REPORTER’s DIARY: Chasing Shadows At Federal Ministry of Environment

Many Journalists will tell you they go through a lot of stress before getting the story out to their readers. Despite being in a digital age where information should be accessed at the click of a keypad, Nigerian journalists still have to do plenty leg work for their stories. This is simply because many government ministries, departments and agencies do not upload important information about their activities on the website.

It was the case with me when I pitched a story on climate change to the editor of THE WHISTLER newspaper, a frontline news website with head office in Abuja, where I intended to do an internship before school resumes.

After the editor refocused my story idea, he sent me to the field to report on the effect of plastic pollution on the environment/climate. It sounded as a good story idea to me considering how Nigeria still struggles with unsightly and unhealthy mountains of garbage in its major cities including the its capital, Abuja.

These mountains of garbage are predominantly plastics and polytene which are often set on fire, dumped in gutters or waterways. Plastic waste is one of the enablers of climate change.

One of my field assignments was to speak with officials of the Ministry of Environment on the Climate Change Act signed by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2021. I was to find out if the government had started implementation of the law, and what steps it had taken. I also needed to find out what waste control measures were in place.

I had expected to dash to the ministry’s head office at Mabuchi, Abuja , speak to the relevant officials and get necessary materials for the report. I didn’t expect it was going to be a big deal. But how naïve! I soon found out how tedious it is to source for information from MDAs.

It all started  on a Friday in May,2022 when I first visited the ministry where I met the Press Secretary who directed me to the Department of Pollution Control and Environmental Health at the Maitama office. I didn’t know that the offices are located in different parts of the city.

I immediately took a taxi to the office so as to meet them since it was a Friday, regarded as “half day” for civil servants. I was shown the office of the Director, Pollution Control and Environmental Health located on the first floor of the brown building where I met the secretary.

We exchanged pleasantries after which I stated my mission. The Secretary told me any information regarding the ministry could not be released “just like that” except a letter is submitted. The official insisted I could not even peep in to see the head of the department and explain myself directly to him.

In order not to cause a scene, I immediately returned to the office to get the letter that would afford me the opportunity to get the information. I got to the office and told the editor who promptly gave me a letter of request for the information I needed.

 I went back to the ministry the following Monday because it was too late to return to the ministry. Armed with the letter, I was hopeful and excited that I would get the information I needed to do my first story for THE WHISTLER.  But I got another shock again when I got to the ministry on Monday and presented the letter. The letter was rejected on the excuse that it did not follow their inhouse format!

I was supposed to address it to the Director, Department of Climate Change, and I had to first present it to the Permanent Secretary of the ministry for approval before the director could give me what I wanted. I again returned to the office to change the address of the letter and make other corrections at the office.

Next day ,Tuesday, I went to the ministry’s headquarters to submit the new letters to the office of the Perm. Sec. and was asked to check in on Friday for “approval” which I would take to the other office of the ministry in Maitama.

Fast forward to Friday, I went to the headquarters to do a follow up on the letters I submitted and was told it had not been approved yet. I was asked to return the following week to track the progress of my letters, meaning nothing had been done on it after five days!

The following week I went back and got the approval which I took to the Maitama office. Without delay, I made three copies of the approved letters and presented them to the two departments. After submitting the letters, I got another shock again when I was told that I had to follow up on the letters by coming to check “after a few days.”

Subsequently, I started with my follow ups which took nearly three weeks until both departments were given the go ahead to attend to me from the headquarters. Nevertheless, the stress did not end there. I was directed to speak with an official under the PCEH Department who said he would only speak off the record.

I agreed as long as he gave me the information I wanted. But as it turned out, all my efforts turned to waste. But also an eye opener about the opacity of government. No one was willing to take responsibility and speak on the issues.   

The PCEH official told me the ministry did not have the data I needed because it is not responsible for waste management in the country. He said the ministry only engages in intervention activities and the regulation of technological innovations for state agencies.

He spoke on creating awareness about climate change , and said all stakeholders were urged to participate in the ministry’s project to create the awareness. However, he also said there was no  particular department solely responsible for awareness creation in the ministry. He also said  distribution of waste bins for the segregation of plastic and other organic waste is a yearly budget project for the ministry which is carried out based on the where the project is being allocated in the country.

According to him, climate change is affecting the FCT and Nigeria as a whole, but lamented that there was no effective and sustainable waste management practice and system in the FCT and Nigeria.

Meanwhile, at the Department of Climate Change, I was again assigned to a staff who was to help me answer the questions contained  in my letter. But he asked me to “come back the following week” because he was going for  a meeting and needed time to go through my questions.

When I came back the next day, he told me the person to attend to my request had traveled out of the country, and no one would give me any information without his permission. He said I had to wait until he comes back to the country. By this time, it was almost two months after my first visit.

Finally, the boss arrived. I was hoping the wait would be worth it by the time I finally get to meet him. But again, how naïve! He gave me no concrete information except to reveal that “the  White Paper on the Climate Change Act had not been sent to us yet.”

He did not answer any follow up question! My conclusion is that the Nigerian government has no national programme to manage climate change, and especially plastic wastes in the country. But instead of telling me from the onset that it had no idea about the information I was requesting, the ministry made me waste two and half months chasing shadows.

I think we really do not need the ministries to run the governments.