National Wire About Nigerians, Nigerian Business and Other Stories
Dayo Emmanuel
The governor of Lagos State, Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode has said that children bear the greatest brunt of poor environmental management.
Ambode said this while signing the Environmental Management, Protection Bill into Law on 1st March 2017 in Lagos.
This law is expected to help the state to become a cleaner place and attract investors. It also aims at creating over 20,000 new jobs. Apart from achieving a cleaner Lagos and attracting more investors to generate additional earning, a cleaner environment will safe cost for the state in the area of healthcare.
Signing the Bill into law, Mr. Ambode said, “Outside the financial burden the state is coping with, children were the greatest causalities of poor management of the environment and the new law is important.” He also said the majority of the state’s environmental laws were dated and could no more apply to present day challenges hence a new model in which sanitation is necessary.
“We believe it is worth the risk involved in changing the legislative framework if the reward is a healthier and cleaner Lagos for our children and our culture.” Ambode added.
Corroborating Ambode’s submission, Medical Director of God’s Goal Hospital, Ojoo, Lagos, Dr. Gabriel Omonaiye said the governor was on point knowing that children have lower immunity and therefore vulnerable.
“The governor is right because of the vulnerability of children, health wise, as they easily succumb to some sicknesses and tend to fare worse than adults,” Omonaiye said, adding that, “Poor environmental sanitation is a good breeding ground for diseases like cholera, gastroenteritis, water borne ailments, malaria fever and other diseases.”
However, being the pace setter state for the nation, other states in Nigeria are expected to emulate Lagos State which has updated its environmental laws to meet increasing population and modern realities.
Apart from legislation, another idea that can help Nigeria achieve a safe environment is education. Education if well channeled through massive campaign, would provide enlightenment on modern waste disposal methods. It would also highlight such dangers associated with indiscriminate waste disposal.
Combining legislation and education, one more idea that can be combined to ensure a safe environment is infrastructure.
Infrastructure in this wise must include provision of modern waste collection trucks, functioning dumpsites, and creation of additional recycling centres.
Indiscriminate disposal of refuse has been linked to breeding of diseases, flooding, air, soil and water pollution.
Presently there are two main functioning dump sites in Lagos State; the Ojota and the Igando dump sites. An official on the state’s Private Support Program (PSP) on waste disposal, Mr. Apesin revealed that “Ojota dump site is getting filled and Igando is currently pressurised.”
He added that, “Igando dump site which is smaller in capacity to the Ojota site accommodates about350 waste disposal trucks of 40 tons daily. We are hoping a functioning one in Badagry would come into full operation soon.”
Presently, waste disposal trucks visiting neighborhoods once a week are no longer regular. This development is forcing residents to seek alternative arrangements. “Despite the fact that waste disposal in the metropolis come with annual cost of N24,000 (about $63), the trucks are not functioning optimally anymore,” a Lagos landlord, Alhaji Alani Tijani said. Tijani revealed further that, “Most homes are forced to engage the services of cart pushers,”
Explaining why the trucks are not regular in the various communities, Apesin added that, “The Ojota site is filled up and the government is trying to expand it. Some of the trucks are also not in best shapes that is why they are not as regular again.Once the Badagry site is ready, we would be more regular with our services.”
Meanwhile once the residents don’t find the PSP trucks as and when due, the cart pushers are readily engaged to evacuate wastes and these opportunist individuals also seeking livelihood often dispose the collected refuse inappropriately.
The menace of the cart pushers are however responsible for indiscriminate dumping of refuse in street corners, middle of the roads and worst still, inside drainages which is capable of causing flooding.
Provision of adequate infrastructure to support waste disposal is another idea that can help the environment in Nigeria. These infrastructure include more functioning waste collecting trucks and recycling facilities.
The governor earlier stated that under the cleaner Lagos Initiative, the commercial sector would be run by licensed waste management operators while an environmental consortium will provide waste collection, processing and disposal services for residential properties through a long term consortium. He also revealed the government’s plan that over the consortium period, a large multidimensional fleet of over 20 landfill and transfer loading station management vehicles, 590 new rear-end loader compactors, 140 Operational vehicles and about 900,000 electronically tracked by the new Public Utilities Monitoring Assurance Unit would be in place.
The new initiative according to the state government is expected to create additional 27,500 jobs. “Everyone from the cart pushers to the existing PSPs and casual workers at the dumpsites have been considered in the plan and will be accommodated within the new environmental regime,” Ambode explained.
However, if the government in Nigeria engages the above ideas, the environment would be preserved and the ripples effect would benefit all.
NB: Pictures by Dayo Emmanuel
