The state of the environment in Kano, the Kano State capital, has led to  drastic steps to save it, writes CHINAKA OKORO

As an ancient and traditional capital of Northern Nigeria, Kano City is phenomenal in trade and commerce. It is also a blend of old and new. However, it is blighted by the seeming loss of many opportunities.

The sprawling city, which is home to large migrants from within and outside Nigeria, has suffered from avoidable environmental degradation, especially from uncontrolled discharge of effluents from tanneries.

For many years, thick, coloured and stinking water is continuously channeled into open drains, which in turn seep into bodies of water and contaminate underground water and air. These have become sources of concern for the health of citizens and the environment.

Kano has the highest number of tanneries and considerable number of textile industries in the country and these are the major polluters of the environment. The effluents discharged from these industries do not meet the standard set by the Federal Environmental Protection Agency, (FEPA).

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Residents of the city have been suffering from the effects of increased pollution from industrial activities, which discharge into the Challawa River from Challawa Industrial Area; the Salanta River from Sharada Industrial Area as well as Jakara Dam from Bompai Industrial Area. But the problem has its roots in inadequate planning dating back to four decades.

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Tanneries and textile industries in most Nigerian cities do not have the capacity and technology to manage their wastes in an environmentally responsible manner. The indiscriminate discharge of untreated industrial wastes into rivers have caused great damage to river beds, adjoining farm lands and contamination of underground water and reservoirs.  The continuous discharge of effluents does not only affect the quality of water, but also affect air and soil; hence the major environmental and ecological pollution now witnessed in Kano City.

The public has raised concerns for environmental pollution around Bompai Industrial Area as early as 1978.  Records indicate that the Kano State government commissioned a study on the problem the same year. The White Paper recommended treatment of the industrial wastes through natural drainage channels with a discharge into the Jakara Dam. Then, the system of wastes management was seemingly adequate as an effective method of waste treatment and disposal. As new industries sprout in Challawa and Sharada Industrial Areas, effluents generated were discharged into Challawa River and Salanta River respectively.

In the three industrial areas in Kano, the environment is under increasing pressure from solid and liquid wastes emanating from the tannery industries. The metals in tannery effluents such as chromium, aluminium and zirconium are all classified as having a high and chronic toxic effect on organic life.

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They are inevitable by-products of the leather manufacturing process and cause significant pollution unless properly treated prior to discharge. Moreover, the tannery industry can cause high influx of chromium into the biosphere, which contributes 40 per cent of the total industrial use.

Untreated waste water discharged from tanning industries contains high level of biochemical oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand, electrical conductivity and heavy metals, especially chromium above permissible levels, making it potentially toxic.

Mindful of the dangers which wastes constitute to the people and the environment, the Kano State government, the Federal Ministry of Environment and other stakeholders have carried out several preliminary studies and made sundry recommendations on how to manage industrial wastes in Kano.

The options are varied with rising cost over time, but Kano State government could not respond to the pollution problems due to paucity of funds. Last year, the Ecological Fund Office (EFO), an arm of the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, stepped in to address the problem in a sustainable manner.

A technical committee, which reviewed all options, was mandated to produce a cost-effective and sustainable management plan for the industrial waste in the Challawa, Sharada and Bompai Industrial areas of Kano.

Information gathered from the EFO indicated that the technical committee embarked on data collection, including reconnaissance survey of the project site, inventory of existing physical features, drainage evaluations, soil materials assessments, the volume of effluent discharged by the companies during peak and ordinary periods, quantity of skin processed during peak and ordinary periods per day and evaluation of research works previously undertaken on the matter.

The committee, considering international best practice, studied effluent treatment in similar industrial clusters in other climes such as Austria, Kenya and Ethiopia.

The committee, according to EFO Permanent Secretary, Dr. Habiba Lawal, recommended that a Central Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP) for both primary and secondary treatments of 4,000m^3/day capacity be built in Sharada; a similar CETP capable of handling 15,000m^3/day volume for Challawa; and a primary treatment plant of 1,000m^3/day capacity for Bompai. It also recommended the construction of closed effluent conveyance pipes and covered culverts in all the industrial sites as well as road improvement especially at Challawa and Sharada Industrial areas.

In April, this year, Messrs. Alps Global Link, which won a competitive bidding last year, moved to site.  Construction work is ongoing steadily. A team of reporters, who toured the project sites at Sharada, Challawa and Bompai last week, noticed that workers were busy at all the locations laying pipes through deep tunnels.

A civil engineer, Nurain Akewusola, spoke on the scope of the project which entails digging tunnels and laying pipes across over 10 kilometres. Every 30 metres apart is a reinforced concrete chamber, between 2.5 and 4.5 metres deep. “The disparity is to facilitate easy flow across varying gradients,” said Akewusola, who revealed that the chambers are linked by 300mm high density polyethylene pipes.

Hundreds of pipes are linked to three separate effluent treatment plants. Every industrial hub will get a treatment plant. While civil work has reached about 90 per cent completion, the construction of the treatment plants would soon commence for the three locations.

“We have the full co-operation of the Nigerian Railway Corporation on the site earmarked at Bompai, where construction of the effluent plant has commenced,” Lawal said.

At Sharada and Challawa, the state government is reaching out to host communities in a bid to ensure that workmen have unfettered access to the sites to build the treatment plants. Kano State Commissioner for Environment, Kabiru Ibrahim Getso has reiterated government’s resolve to ensure completion of the project on time. He said the Bureau of Land Management has submitted its assessment report, which is awaiting Governor Abdullahi Ganduje’s consideration.

Dr. Getso also expressed his gratitude to the Federal Government for taking a bold step in containing the persistent environmental challenge faced by the people of Kano, even as he expressed optimism that EFO’s gesture will restore the industrial glory of Kano State, and help old and existing industries operate more profitably in line with global best practice.

More stakeholders have hailed Federal Government’s timely intervention  in reversing the age-long environmental devastation of Kano industrial areas.

Mohammed Usman Tayyib built a tannery factory at Sharada in 2003 to process hides and skin.  The company produces finished leather goods and employs hundreds as factory workers. “We handle primary processing and collect the sludge, but waste water is discharged to the open gutter,” said Ambassador Tayyib, who praised the Federal Government for addressing the age long problem.

“Now waste water can be recycled and re-used. In the long-term, this makes our business competitive in the international market, preserving the environment because we all know that untreated industrial water is harmful,” Tayyib said.

The European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) are worried about the level of violence against women and girls and are taking steps to end the unsavoury trend. Ephraims Sheyin reports

In Nigeria, a common counsel to girls about to marry is the need to keep her family’s secrets secret. She is told to avoid bringing in a third party into her marital quarrels so that her home’s dirty linens would not be exposed to the outside world.

Stripped of all diplomatic niceties, it simply means that the young girl is now alone and on her own. It means she should silently accept and tolerate whatever comes her way, including abuse and violence, as just part of what she must live with as a married woman.

To affirm that stance, parents, in most cases, chase away daughters fleeing from abusive homes. The poor woman is dragged back to the husband’s home and forced to live with whatever is thrown at her.

Condemned into this sordid arrangement by an unfeeling society, most a hapless and helpless woman surrenders to fate, certain of nothing except misery and a bleak, blank and black future.

Dr Danladi Bako, former NTA Director and information commissioner in Sokoto State, who spoke recently on this age-old counsel and the culture of forcing women to stoically endure violence and abuses just to remain in a husband’s house, said that it was at the root of the worsening violence against women and girls.

“That crude culture is a major impediment to tackling gender-based violence in the country,” Bako said at a media dialogue organised by Spotlight Initiative, a global partnership between European Union and UN focused on ending the violence.

Bako’s views were captured in a paper titled: “Changing the Narrative of the Rights of Women and Girls – Creating a New Social Order in Nigeria”.

“Women go through a rough time in their homes, but cultural, religious and traditional factors have made it difficult for her to rise and shout.

“From day one, the woman is told to accept her fate and learn to tolerate and live with it because she is not the only one in that shoe.

“She is told by even her mother that what she may find in her marital home is the fate of every woman,” Bako, a development communication specialist, said.

He regretted that even educated women were not voicing out their plight, saying that such silence was worsening the situation and frustrating the search for solutions.

Bako particularly condemned cultures that exploit and demean women, especially the girl-child, who is always denied education, thrown into early marriage and forced into the streets to hawk.

“From my findings, half of the girls that hawk are victims of rape. Girls that hawk groundnuts make an average gain of N200 daily, but they could get N5,000 just by `entering’ the room of a `customer’. This is where the real trouble starts because N5,000 is too tempting for a girl from a poverty-stricken family,” he said.

He called for the right political will to tame the menace, and lamented that groups and individuals trying to enlighten women to stand up for their rights in his native Sokoto are often accused of mobilising women to revolt against cultural norms.

Bako called for total commitment to the goal of ending the injustices against women, and regretted that not much had changed in spite of the creation of women affairs ministries and women development commissions at the federal and state levels.

In her contribution, Hajia Hadiza Aminu, Coordinator, EU/UN Spotlight Initiative, blamed the rising violence against women and girls on the lack of education, and called for more educational opportunities to make women self-reliant.

“Most women remain in abusive homes because they are afraid of the economic consequences of being thrown out. Once they are educated and engaged in activities that will fetch them their daily bread, they will be economically independent and will not be afraid to walk away.

“Once a woman is sure of where her next meal could come from, outside her marital home, no one can force her to remain where she is not comfortable, appreciated or loved,” she said.

She condemned the discrimination meted out to the girl-child by a society that values male children more, and challenged the media to fight against that injustice.

“There are many media houses in Nigeria. There are television and radio stations, newspapers, magazines and online publications. These media houses must give more air time and pages to gender violence issues. Currently, all the attention is on politics!

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“We must build a society that sees and treats everyone as equal. We must all support every child, male or female, to attain his or her dreams so that we can have a society with opportunities and hope for everyone.”

Aminu decried the harassment and torture girls go through to secure admission, attend schools, get jobs and even grow in their careers, alleging that men are always asking girls for sexual gratification in exchange for grades, jobs, promotions and basic rights routinely enjoyed by the boys.

Dr Ibe Ifeakandu, Head of Department, Public Law, Nigeria Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, who spoke on `safeguarding the dignity of women and girls’, was particularly concerned about early marriage.

“Marriage is a contract for consenting adults. A child that is 10 years old cannot enter into a contract because the law does not allow her to do so. Such a child is too young to understand and appreciate the consequences of doing so.

“What it simply means is that it is against the Nigerian constitution to force such a child into a union that she does not understand because the girl is not developed enough to understand the psychological and physiological implications of being a married woman.

“There is even some double standard here. Men force their 10-year-old girls to marry, but will not allow their 10-year-old boys to marry. The girl is given out, but the son is protected. In most cases, a man gets mad if he suspects that an elderly woman is enticing his young son, but he encourages old men to entice his little daughter.

“They will tell you that a girl should get married immediately she reaches puberty, but will not accept that their little boys should do same on attaining that stage. This is unacceptable and we cannot continue this way,” Ifeakandu said.

Ifeakandu also spoke on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), a very harmful practice that involves the removal of the clitoris in the vagina of young girls.

“FGM is a very humiliating practice. Its aim is to reduce the enjoyment of sex. That, certainly, is not fair to the woman because it violates her natural right to enjoy sex.

“When we do this, we are programming the woman to live miserable lives. That is unconstitutional.”

For James Ibor, Human Rights Activist, the situation would only improve if women are allowed to decide what they want, including the right to have children.

“Sometimes, a woman may decide not to have children based on medical advice, but the man will not see things her way. He will not respect her views. Women should be allowed to have a say in what happens to them and the media must fight for them,” he said.

Ibor also spoke on sex-related abortion, and described that as “chilling”.

“Some families abort babies when the child is confirmed to be a female just because the man wants a male child. It is a huge disrespect and disregard for the female child who has equal, if not better, capacities than the male,” he fumed.

Ibor called for more synergy among grassroots Community Society Organisations (CSOs), NGOs and the media, for effective advocacy toward ending the menace.

“The media must work a little harder. We must mobilise traditional rulers, community heads and religious leaders, to buy into our campaign against girl-child abuse.

“We must involve everyone around – the men at their drinking joints, the boys at their football-watching centres, and the women at the plating spots – just everyone, so that the message will reach everyone and everywhere.

“As an initiative seeking to end this menace, Spotlight Initiative must form a core group of journalists dedicated to sustaining social change toward ending violence against women and girls,” he said.

But some of the participants at the media dialogue, while acknowledging the role of the media, called for more attention to the Judiciary, noting that judges had often placed tough hurdles on the path of victims seeking to prove cases of rape and other forms of sexual-related misdeeds.

They called for special courts to handle sexually-related offences to speed up the trials and provide such judges more experiences required to handle such delicate cases.

They also emphasised the need for more attention to the rural areas where such abuses are more common, but grossly under-reported, adding that all stakeholders must be proactive rather than retroactive.

Others also cautioned journalists against stigmatising the victims and making them feel guilty by raising “unnecessary questions” that seem to justify abuse, instead of taking urgent measures to help them from further trauma.

But, as Nigeria seeks an end to the violence against women and girls, a woman activist, Cecilia Biodun, believes a solution is only possible if women began to protect each other from violence and abuses.

“Go and check everywhere. Behind every woman’ misery is another woman. The FGM we all cry about is carried out by women. It is the women that shave the heads of widows. It is also women that force widows to drink the water used in bathing the corpse of their late husbands.

“In various homes, women get beaten because of their husband’s mistresses. Others go hungry because girlfriends have cornered the monies of their husbands. It is also the mother-in-law that makes life unbearable for young wives in every house.

“In the offices and even during elections, women prefer to envy, instead of supporting, each other. They look for every reason to bring down fellow women. We cannot make progress by running down each other,” Biodun declared.

With violence and other forms of harmful practices against women reported to be of epidemic proportions, and with World Demographic and Health Surveys ranking Nigeria 118 out of 134 countries on gender equality index, analysts say that quality education is the only way out.

They say that education is a total package that will empower the girl and woman to make informed decisions and choices which could include pulling out of abusive environments.

The Emir of Kano, Alhaji Sanusi Lamido, put it more succinctly.

“You cannot stop a rich man who wants to marry a 12-year-old girl or a wretched man who wants to marry a fourth wife. All you need to do is to educate the girl to say no. That ends it.”

Many analysts agree that the monarch is right on point.

• Sheyin is of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)