At 82, Chief Newton Jibunoh is itching to go to the desert again. If he does, it will be his fifth expedition to the desert and to Europe. However, concerned individuals and institutions are worried and have actually raised the red flag high against his going again! But the ‘Prince of the Desert’ says he is optimistic and only one thing can stop him. In this interview with PAUL UKPABIO, Chief Jibunoh discloses to us his preparations and the only thing that may stop him from going to the desert again, among other things. Excerpts:
WHEN exactly did you retire?
(Laughs) It depends on what I retired from. I retired from active practice as a builder under a multi-national organisation, which I headed for 16 years, but the total period for which I worked for that organization was 36 years. And that retirement happened about 16 years ago, on my 66th birthday.
But afterwards, I went into environmental sustainability advocacy, which so many people have commented on. That kept me even busier than I was when I was heading that organisation.
And it was something that came out of a passion for the environment: passion for greenery, passion for life because the environment is our life: So that is something that I think I will have difficulty in retiring from because it is something that I want to do for the rest of my life as long as I can stand on my two feet and my hand is strong enough to hold a pen; and the ink continues to flow.
It is something that I enjoy doing so well.
At 82, you still wake up in the morning and come out here to an office to work? Yes, I do. I was telling a colleague of mine, who is about my age but not too strong, that there is nothing like waking up in the morning and having a full day.
I love to do it, though some people say it is not too good for my age. But I love to do it and there is hardly a day that I don’t do that. First thing in the morning, I review my diary for the day. I wake early between the hours of 5:00 and 6:00am.
‘I enjoyed so much peace in the desert and people there celebrated me’
Most mornings, I write because I go to bed early. I bathe myself and at times iron my clothes myself. This morning, I made breakfast myself here in the office. I have a very active day and even at weekends, there’s usually something I have to do, appointments, appearances, lectures to deliver and that has taught me how to keep going.
And you are also blessed with a wife that is still around Yes, particularly as she has agreed to allow me to do some of these things. She allows me to wake up at 3:00 or 4:00 am to write and also allows me to travel, especially on issues relating to climate change, global warming and environmental sustainability.
I am lucky in that sense to have children and grandchildren who, though also always want a piece of me all the time, but I am not able to do that. But they have come to realise the need for me to be spared from some family ties, especially when they see my published writings and other works that I do around.
But is she busy in her own way too?
Yes, she is.
You write every week, what do you write about?
A good part of my writings has been on environmental sustainability and sometimes on political stuff though not partisan politics. There’s a lot of politics in environmental issues. It took almost 25 years to come to the Paris climate change agreement but it took a President Donald Trump to kind of pull out of it.
That’s why when people ask me if I am in politics, I find it difficult to say no but I do not see politics as belonging to a political party and playing partisan. My kind of politics is that which I see in the work I do, in the environmental issues.
There are still a few countries and a few scientists who do not believe in climate change. So that’s what I write about. I also write about the leadership crisis that we have in the country, about the fact that we are not leaving behind a good legacy for the generation that is coming after us.
I write about the fact that there is a lot of rascality in our political structure. I write about elections that are not acceptable, which also has to do the constitution we have which is not acceptable to majority of the people. I write about re-structuring which became a topic before the elections.
I write about religion and the role it plays in our lives, all those things that concern us all. I am a thinker and I love to think and in the process I come up with what I know the general public will enjoy reading.
I have received hundreds of thousands of comments about my writings and no negative report. That enhances and inspires my thinking because even those that sound like criticism are not but help me to think better.
What is the relationship between your kind of activism and arts?
Actually, my daughter called my attention to that word some years ago. She said, ‘Dad, I think you are becoming an activist.’ Before then, I didn’t see myself as an activist.
After a few weeks, I called her back and told her that I think I am an activist because if you look at the environmental issues that I have dabbled into going back almost 40 years ago, then maybe I am. I sounded the alarm bell before the climate change became a big issue.
I crossed the Sahara desert, travelled the whole world, looking at what other countries have done to stem desertification crisis. I travelled around Nigeria for the same. When Lake Chad started to dry up, I travelled over there all on my own expenses, risking my life without knowing it.
I came to realise that I must be an activist. One thing is that I practise what I preach, proferring solutions and initiating some pilot projects to counter what I am talking about.
Can you mention one of two pilot projects that you have worked on?
The first one was in Kano State where I started building a wall of trees in Danbatta in conjunction with the state government and we achieved a wonderful result.
People who had migrated with their animals for years came back because the land became green again and they were able to find a water body where to feed their animals. For me, that was a landmark achievement. I also started talking about the forestry that went from almost 40 percent to about seven percent in the last few years.
I started advocating that we should guide the forest for tomorrow thereby encouraging homes and individuals to start a little garden wherever they are so we can restore our forest. I even celebrated my 75th birthday with the planting of 75 trees in conjunction with the then Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State.
So, there is a garden today in Ikoyi, Lagos, which is known as a Garden of 75 trees in Ikoyi, Osborne. That is part of the legacies to show that I practise what I preach.
At what stage is the issue of climate change now?
In the meantime, America has pulled out. And America was also to fund the mitigation. A good part of the mitigation. Their pulling out has put a set back to the whole issue. The countries that were to be compensated may not be able to do so.
The confluence of parties are looking at seeing what they can still do because though America has pulled out of it, there are still some countries within America that are still interested to go with it.
So, if majority of the states of America are able to come back to the confluence of parties and participate and contribute, they may be able to overcome the setback, otherwise it is really going to pull back the work that has taken about 25 years to put together.
As regards longevity, do you eat anything special, are you on a diet, could it be why you are aging gracefully?
It’s a question that I have been asked. I am not on any special diet. I eat what everyone eats. My favorite food is pounded yam with either Ogbono soup or Okro soup, or what we call Ofe Osalla, the white soup.
However, I watch what I eat so that I don’t develop this or that. Thanks for saying I’m aging gracefully. Yes, I am still standing on my feet and able to do many things by myself.
I don’t know if it is in my gene or if it is my lifestyle. I actually have a friend, General Ike Nwachukwu, who says it is the desert that is responsible for my aging gracefully (laughs).
Do you still have friends your age, who you meet with regularly?
Yes, it’s just that some are very jealous (laughs)! They keep attacking me,especially General Nwachukwu, who doesn’t see any reason why I should be looking the way I look (laughs more), when he is looking older.
So I have them, friends, and when we meet, it’s fun; we joke a lot. Just last night, General Nwachukwu and I were together.
One can say that you have had a good life but is there anything that you feel that you have missed out on?
No, not at all. I have even surpassed my expectation in terms of good health and achievement. So I like to give back; that is what is left for me to do because there is nothing left to give to myself. Even when I don’t owe anybody, I feel compelled to give back.
This last Christmas, I went into partnership with a medical outreach which came to my home town with four doctors and seven nurses, who attended medically to hundreds of people because my people were just dying and dying.
People were dying from high blood pressure, malaria, typhoid because they were not assessing good medical treatment. And the programme was successful. The doctors and nurses told me that the blessings that they got from the people will last them for the rest of their lives.
Do you still engage in any form of sports?
I walk more these days. I used to swim but when my shoulder pain increased, my doctor told me to relax. So, I stopped swimming but walk inside the pool. Lagos is not a very good place to walk around but when I am in my home town, I walk a lot.
Do you miss the desert?
Yes, I do. I have done it four times. If not that I have been warned of the security implications, I would have been going on the expedition to the desert every year.
But I have been warned even by our Foreign Affairs Ministry not to try it again. However, I get so much peace in the desert; so much that one can do there. The people of the desert are a lot happier when they see me because of what I have helped to create there.
So, I enjoy going back to the desert because they celebrate me. For them, I am always like a Prince come to town. And you know, it is always nice to be where you are celebrated, loved and cared for. So yes, I miss the desert and I hope I will have one more opportunity to go.
When you went the last time, you said it will be your last and that you were going to tell them goodbye
Yes, I said so, but I have come to realise that you can never say never! The hunger to go back to the desert is very much in me. The desert is calling me and I want to go back there.
Will your wife and family in general allow you to go again?
Gone are the days that my wife used to be scared, fight and get worried because having done it four times, they feel that I have mastered the art. If nothing happened in the first time and second to the fourth, then there is nothing evil likely going to happen on the 5th.
So, not that they are not worried but that they go into denial, not knowing what to say. I know it because I see it in them. But the moment they object to my going, I will stop going.
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