83 Jailed For Environmental Offences
By Abolaji Adebayo
No fewer than 83 people are currently serving various jail terms in Badagry Correctional Centre, for environmental offences, ECHONEWS has reliably gathered.
Their offences vary from indiscriminate dumping of refuse, non-patronage of PSP to illegal erection of shanties among others.
The Managing Director, Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), Mr. Ibrahim Odumboni disclosed this recently.
He said that out of over 2 million houses in Lagos State, less than 250,000 have waste bins.
In 2021, 28 Magistrate courts were approved to prosecute environmental offenses which attract not less than six months imprisonment or N250,000 fine.
President, Association of Waste Managers of Nigeria (AWAMN), David Oriyomi, explained that it is an offence not to patronise PSP operators or refuse to pay for services rendered.
Oriyomi said the Chief Judge of Lagos State, Kazeem Alogba, gave the approval in a letter sent to the association.
The approval also included six Mobile Courts, where offenders would be tried on-the-go.
He said the association had been visiting the courts to ensure the judges’ collaboration on the directive.
According to him, apart from supporting the association, the approval of the courts to try environmental offenders would also improve the aesthetics of Lagos State.
He urged residents to patronise the waste managers and pay for services rendered, so as to ensure a cleaner Lagos.
According to him, if the operator is well-funded with his equipment and is delivering the services, the entire state will be clean, but once the operator is not effective, it will impact negatively on the environment.
”With the approval of these courts for environmental offences, defaulters will be forced to conform with the requirements of cleanliness.
”Once you pay for the services rendered, the operators will be more efficient in delivering the services.
“The operator will be able to service the loan that he acquired from the bank to purchase trucks that he use in servicing his clients.
”We are happy that the Chief Judge approved the courts and by that token, has enhanced the cleanliness of the state.
”Most of these diseases come through dirty environment, so it behoves on us to keep our environment clean, so as to have healthy citizens and healthy economy,” Oriyomi said.
Earlier last year, the state government reestablished Environmental Sanitation competition amongst all local governments and council areas in the state.
The Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Tunji Bello, said that the competition is being brought back to reawaken the consciousness of every resident with local governments serving as the pivot of the campaign.
He explained that since the programme suffered a setback in 2017 through a court stoppage of the monthly environmental sanitation exercise, everyone has let down their guard thus aggravating various environmental issues.
According to him, part of the benefit derivable is bringing about healthy competition on sanitation and hygiene practices amongst communities, markets and LG/LCDA.
Others are improvement in the environmental conditions of the state especially on highways, roads and streets, markets, schools and illegal street trading.
An assessment committee was constituted with membership drawn from the Environment Ministry and Local Government and Community Affairs and other relevant MDAs to inspect all public utilities.
The assessment committee inspects the general aesthetics of the scheduled LG/LCDA and the commitment of each to environmental management.
Some of the criteria for the assessment of each LG/LCDA include culture of bagging of refuse, clean and flowing drains, LAWMA PSP patronage and vegetal control.
Others are markets cleanliness, landscaping and beautification of LG/LCDA secretariat, control of illegal structures, shanties, black spots, illegal refuse dumps, encroachment on drainage setbacks, street trading, abandoned buildings, land and properties.
In the first edition of the competition, Surulere LGA, Epe LGA and Oriade LCDA won the cleanest Local Governments and LCDA in the Metropolitan, Urban and Sub-Urban categories respectively.
