Make Lagos A Cooler Place For Your Kids, Plant Trees!

Have you ever stepped of your house into the Lagos heat and wished you could go back in? Do you sit in your car or bus and look at traders hawking handkerchiefs and selling cold pure water, wondering how much they make in a day? Are you constantly chasing body cream after body cream, trying to restore your skin and reduce the damage that the scalding sun is causing? Do you find yourself wondering what twenty years from now, the country under the regime of this unyielding sun, would look like? The bad news is, according to global warming and severe climate change, it is not going to get any better. With toxic gases still being released into the atmosphere and the ozone layer still depleting century after century, the future has no hope. Our children have no hope. This is what I was thinking in a bus, stuck in Ikeja traffic, squashed amidst a sea of limbs and sweating profusely, trying to contain my frustration. The sun kept burning relentlessly despite all my pleas and prayers. I wondered how Joshua could command the sun to stand still when I was here wishing I could make it go away. Why can’t Lagos be cooler? Why can’t we just wake up to a normal cool day, without it raining? The questions and hopelessness stretched before me like an endless mirage… …Until I stepped down at the Alausa secretariat and began my walk. Few minutes into my mental rant I realized there was no external heat fuelling my thoughts. It suddenly wasn’t hot anymore. Then I looked up and saw that the entire road was shaded with TREES. It was like magic. Trees present; heat absent. In that instant I remembered all the biology classes I had had that emphasized on trees breathing, taking in carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen, with broad leaves protecting us from the sun rays. It dawned on me right here and then, that there was hope after all. So, mothers and fathers, future parents and guardians, let us plant a tree today. You do not want the land to be arid and unfertile for your children. Imagine how much more habitable Lagos would be ten years from now if everyone planted at least one tree on his street. Tunji Bello, the Lagos State Commissioner for The Environment saw the need for trees when he executed a project of planting ten thousand trees across Lagos, and prohibited anyone from cutting down a tree. Now, I am taking it out of your government’s hands and placing it in yours, asking you to leave a standing, growing, breathing legacy for your children.