The Lagos State Government has maintained that the newly reintroduced monthly environmental sanitation will entrench a culture of cleanliness among the residents of Lagos State.
Speaking while featuring on TVC’s breakfast programme “Your View” on Monday, the Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Mr Tokunbo Wahab said when a problem becomes existential for the citizens, the government needs to take unusual steps.
Wahab said the reintroduction of the sanitation exercise is to bring back the culture of regular cleaning of surroundings, drainages in front of tenement as this was the culture over a decade ago.
“The Sanitation exercise will officially commence on the last Saturday of April, which is the 25th, between the hours of 6:30 and 8:30 am, translating to a total of two hours in a month”, he said.
He added that the exercise was halted years back when a Senior Advocate of Nigeria took the State to Court with respect to the Law used for environmental sanitation restrictions. He said the petitioner claimed that the Law relied on was not in the body of Laws for Lagos State.
The Commissioner said the State, after the judgment, proceeded to the Court of Appeal, where Judgement was given in favour of the State with the Court Affirming that the Laws used for the implementation and enforcement were legitimate. He said the State noticed that over time, residents neglected the cleanliness culture and have condoned living in a dirty and despicable environment.
Wahab stressed that Lagos, as a growing State with a population of about 22 million people, cannot afford to accommodate this negative culture, hence the reintroduction of the exercise. “In the coming weeks, we will rally all Stakeholders like the Executives of the Local Government and Local Council Development Areas, CDAs and CDCs, Market leaders, as well as the National Union of Road Transport Workers to get their buy-in on the exercise”.
Wahab said the Environment is a common patrimony and heritage that everyone has a duty to protect, adding that how the environment is treated is how it treats humans.
He said the present administration has undertaken several approaches to combat flooding, such as providing sustainable drainage infrastructure, banning Styrofoam and Single-use-plastics, saying these approaches have paid off in the fight against flooding.
Wahab said the State has invested heavily in waste-to-wealth and waste-to-energy initiatives that will help reduce the quantum of waste at the landfill sites. He mentioned that the Olusosun dumpsite is in the process of decommissioning, adding that New Landfills have been opened up at Erekiti in Badagry and Oke-Oso in the Epe axis of the State.
He enjoined residents to imbibe the culture of managing their waste, to see waste as a resource that can be recycled to generate funds.
