Environmental Problems in Nigeria - A Review

Abstract

People’s attempts to adjust their endless wants and desires for food, shelter, recreation, infrastructural facilities and others to the land and other resources available to them has resulted in the deterioration of urban and rural environmental quality in Nigeria, which is characterized by water shortages and floods that play a major role in
the transmission of communicable diseases. The review is an attempt to x-rays some of the resultant impacts of man’s interaction with his environment with a view to outlining their contribution to environmental problems and how far the environmental policies have been implemented to control the negative impacts by man on the environment. Suggestions are made for re-designing the objectives and strategies of the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (FEPA). Environmental protection techniques need to be cultured, home-grown and the framework should be “bottom-up”. A number of communities should be grouped together from the (political) ward level to local
government level. Environmental protection agencies at the local government level should be empowered to punish offenders.