As part of efforts to urgently arrest the depletion of the   natural resources of the Lake Chad region, MTN Nigeria is throwing its weight behind the hosting of the World Conference being organised to save the Lake.

The conference, scheduled to hold in Abuja from of November 23 to 24, is aimed at sensitising the world to the deplorable state of infrastructure, lack of basic amenities and the untold hardship being faced by the inhabitants of the Lake Chad region, as well as proffer solutions.

Speaking on the sponsorship of the conference, with the theme: 'Saving Lake Chad', Bola Akingbade, MTN chief marketing and strategy officer, stated that the conference is aimed at working out a strategy to return Lake Chad, once reputed to be the largest lake in the world, to its old glory. He also pledged MTN's commitment towards effecting a change in the Lake Chad, which has supported over 20 million people in communities within its surrounding countries, being the only source of water due to sparse rainfall in the region.

According to Akingbade, "the depletion of the water resources of the Lake Chad basin has long reached the limits for sustainable development. The problem of water shortages within the region is begging for urgent attention and MTN will not shy away from the imminent danger looming around the North-Eastern region of Nigeria as a result of the climate change there".

He, however, lamented that the resources are fast becoming extinct as a result of several decades of droughts and desertification, occasioned by shortage of rainfall, high winds and temperature rise in the region. Adding that the area is witnessing a mass exodus of the inhabitants while many of them have become refugees in their own land, because of the fast pace in which the resources in the region is diminishing.