Mr Kogi, MBGK to partner State Government on Climate Action »

The Mr Kogi Pageantry and the Most Beautiful Girl in Kogi is set to partner the Kogi State Government on the issue of Climate Change.

This was revealed by the brain behind the Project, Mr Edime Edime at a World Press Conference held in Lokoja as part of preparations for the pageantry.

Edime said their decision to partner the state government was born out of the need to ensure government buys into the idea which is one of the most globally discussed issues at the moment.

According to him, the body would be planting trees and encouraging planting of cover crops across the state capital, Lokoja and other parts of the state to ensure the recovery of some of the carbon dioxide that have been lost to human activities.

He said winners of the pageantry must take the issue of Climate Change seriously as contestants are being educated on issues surrounding the depletion of the ozone layer and emission of greenhouse gases.

While delivering his keynote address, the founder of the CT – Taxi, Mr Johnson Musa said the agro-climatic conditions of Kogi State makes it suitable for the cultivation of food and tree crops such as Yam, cassava, sorghum, rice, cowpea, groundnut, and melon which constitute the main food crops while cashew, mango, oil palm and cocoa are some of the economic trees cultivated by farmers in the State.

He noted that the impacts of climate change were spatially diverse and that it is held that developing countries would be more in jeopardy than developed countries due to their reliance on climate-sensitive sectors.

Mr Musa noted that the State which falls within the Southern Guinea Savanna belt of Nigeria is a transition from the rainforest to a Savanna Ecological Landscape and that the cultivation of root crops and grains flourished in the state as in other places within the Southern Guinea Savanna Belt of the country.

He urged the state government to utilise areas of advantage that it possesses to ensure the climate action was embraced across the state, and lauded the decision of government to partner with the organisers of the pageantry in order to combat climate change.

On her part, Miss Sherifat Abdulyekini who is the Pageant Director said planting of trees across the Kogi State Capital, Lokoja was one of the cheapest and biggest ways among others to tackle the effects of climate change because as trees grew, they absorb and store the carbon dioxIde emissions that are driving global heating.