Prof Auwal Farouk Abdussalam of Kaduna State University has warned that climate change is driving a surge in heat-related deaths across Nigeria, describing it as a “silent public health crisis.”
Delivering his 13th Professorial Inaugural Lecture titled “Climate Dynamics, Environmental Sustainability, and Public Health,” Abdussalam said Nigeria is unprepared for the health emergencies caused by extreme heat and erratic weather.
“We do not even know how many people are dying because of the heat,” he lamented, citing severe incidents in Kano and Kaduna where heat stress reportedly caused multiple unrecorded deaths.
The don linked rising temperatures to increased cases of malaria, cholera, and other diseases, warning that warmer climates now favour mosquito breeding and pathogen spread.
“Mosquitoes are very happy,” he noted.
He cautioned that Nigeria’s fragile healthcare system cannot handle the growing climate-induced disease burden and urged a coordinated national response involving all sectors.
Abdussalam also decried widespread ignorance of climate change, stressing that “the youth are the soul of the nation, yet many do not understand what climate change means for their future.”
