{"id":81924,"date":"2026-01-20T09:57:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T09:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=81924"},"modified":"2026-01-20T09:57:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T09:57:22","slug":"expert-urges-fg-to-drop-grow-now-clean-later-model","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2026\/01\/20\/expert-urges-fg-to-drop-grow-now-clean-later-model\/","title":{"rendered":"Expert Urges FG to Drop \u2018Grow Now, Clean Later\u2019 Model"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Omoniyi David<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A materials engineering researcher, Azeem Abubaker, has urged the Federal Government to abandon the \u201cgrow now, clean later\u201d development approach, warning that economic growth should not come at the expense of environmental sustainability.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking in an interview in Abuja, Abubaker cautioned that delaying action on pollution and environmental degradation could saddle Nigeria with toxic air, depleted resources and huge clean-up costs in the future.<\/p>\n<p>He said prioritising rapid economic expansion without strong environmental safeguards could trigger public health crises and cause irreversible damage to the ecosystem.<\/p>\n<p>The expert proposed a three-pillar strategy for sustainable development: adoption of green technology, promotion of a zero-waste circular economy, and immediate enforcement of environmental laws.<\/p>\n<p>According to him, Nigeria\u2019s developing industrial base offers an opportunity to \u201cleapfrog\u201d the environmentally damaging stages experienced by older economies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChoosing clean energy and smart regulations now allows Nigeria to build a resilient economy that creates wealth without sacrificing citizens\u2019 health,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Omoniyi David A materials engineering researcher, Azeem Abubaker, has urged the Federal Government to abandon the \u201cgrow now, clean later\u201d development approach, warning that economic growth should not come at the expense of environmental sustainability. Speaking in an interview in Abuja, Abubaker cautioned that delaying action on pollution and environmental degradation could saddle Nigeria [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":81925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1720,172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81924"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81926,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81924\/revisions\/81926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}