Paper short abstract:

The paper argues that the socio-political challenges in the Lake Chad Basin of the West and Central regional part of Africa are consequences of the ecological crisis in the region caused by climate change. Thus, I advanced an African Epistemic theory to enhance Leadership response to climate change

Paper long abstract:

The paper interrogate regional governmental responses to the management of the Lake Chad Basin(LCB). The shrinking of the lake due largely to climate change, engenders environmental degradation, transnational criminal activities, public health concerns and poverty. The leadership response to these crises has been through the Lake Chad Basin Commission established in 1964. I notes that, the activities of the commission culminating into the "Lake Chad Vision 2025" has yielded minimum success in addressing the effects of climate change in the region. This is due to the hydrological perspectives of Water (HP) that informs the commission's policy. The HP of water as a natural object, I argue, informs the unethical use of water system and the environment in the region. The paper argues for the hydrosocial perspective of water (HsP), where water is definable by the socio-cultural nexus it is embedded in. Consequently, the paper, using the hermeneutic approach, explores African Indigenous epistemology to examine the (HsP) for enhancing sustainable leadership response to the ecological crisis in the region. African epistemology reveals unitary ontologized thought that fuses the epistemic subject and the epistemic object. This has a basis of an inceptual thinking that better encapsulate social-cultural perception of Water as part of the human persons. A leadership response to the ecological crisis of this zone fashioned along the HsP, and built upon the indigenous knowledge process of the local people will forms basis an eco-critical interaction towards water. Thus enhancing leadership response to the ecological crisis in the LCB.