No Going Back On Monthly Environmental Sanitation – Lagos Govt

By BENJAMIN OMOIKE, LAGOS, Nigeria – Lagos State Government has pledged to intensify its advocacy to ensure residents embrace voluntary cleanliness of their environment, saying the monthly environmental sanitation exercise has come to stay in a bid to ensure a cleaner city. 

The state government stated this during the second edition of the reintroduced monthly environmental sanitation, which took place across the state.

While the wife of the Lagos State Governor, Dr. Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu participated in the exercise at Alimosho Local Government Area, accompanied by the state’s commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, Special Adviser to the  of Governor on the Environment, Rotimi Akodu, members of the Committee of Wives of Lagos State Officials, COWLSO, and other top government functionaries, the state’s Head of Service Mr. Bode Agoro led top government officials in the monitoring of the exercise in the Apapa area of the state. 

Speaking in an interview with journalists, Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab lauded the exercise, noting that Alimosho is one of the cleanest Local Government Areas in the state. 

He said, ‘’ We observed some local governments are very clean and this local government seems to be one of them. Here, we cleaned up some areas. What we have to do is to encourage the chairman of the local government Area and his team , the honourable member of the House, to do much more, more engagement  with the people with cleaning the environment. You can see that they have cleaned the environment. They also have their  own compactors to cart away the waste, so the chairman is well done. 

‘’We also made it clear to Lagosians in respect of the holidays and the festivities that the commitment to the environment is unique. We had our sallah three days ago , yesterday  was a big festival for those that know but today we must clean our environment because  we have a commitment that every last Saturday of the month is for lagos environmental sanitation  day.’’

 On the recalcitrance of some commercial vehicles on the road and residents not coming out to participate in the environmental sanitation exercise, Wahab said, ‘’In fairness to commercial buses we didn’t  find most of them on the road, just very few . We have already communicated to the right people. 

‘’On the citizens, we have to keep communicating  with them on why they have to take in this culture and spend two hours  in a whole month  to clean up  their  environment.  We are trying to create a culture, and that is a dominant  culture of a clean environment  in Lagos state. After a while, we will do the assessment also.’’ 

Dwelling on the restriction of movement, we made it clear that, ‘’ We are not imposing restrictions. We are fine with what I have seen. We are taking the message of conviction.  This is a thing that has been  off for almost ten years, so bringing  it back with a different  demography and youth population, then we must find a way to communicate  it.’’

 Corroborating the commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, the state’s Head of Service, Mr. Bode Agoro reiterated the importance of clean environment, saying , ‘’We are serious about cleaning our environment. Nobody likes to live in a dirty environment. You don’t feel good, you don’t feel happy. And you fall sick, look at all sorts of illnesses, airborne diseases going right all over the place. So the more we clean our environment, the healthier we’ll be. So it’s encouraging, it can be better for sure.’’ 

Urging the residence to embrace voluntary compliance, Agoro said, ‘’It’s not about punishment. It’s about encouraging them to desist from such behavior. Of course, there are sanctions. If you throw dirt on the road or stuff like that, there are sanctions. And there’s enforcement. 

‘’The Ministry of Environment will do the appropriate enforcement. If you violate the sanitation law, there must be sanctions. But then we want a situation where we don’t need to enforce those sanctions. We want to create an environment where people automatically know that it is wrong to throw dirt on the road.’’