WED: Group Urges Federal, State Govts to Tackle Air Pollution, Address Climate Change
Fadekemi Ajakaiye
Incoming administrations at the federal and state levels and the legislatures have been urged to take bold action to beat air pollution, improve health, address climate change, and fulfil citizen’s human rights obligations.
A group, Sustainable Research and Action for Environmental Development (SRADeV Nigeria) gave the recommendation in a message by its Executive Director, Dr. Leslie Adogame, on this year’s World Environment Day.
“Since pollution and poverty go hand in hand, and with Nigeria being described as the ‘poverty capital of the world’, the implication is that more people will likely die from air pollution-related diseases in the coming years if urgent public emergency action plans are not put in place,” said Adogame.
He said polluted air in the country is creating a national public health emergency, especially in all urban cities, “threatens everyone from unborn babies to children walking to school, to women selling their wares in the open, to industrial workers, and even unsuspecting residential/ commercial dwellers to every office worker. The deadly effects are: asthma, other respiratory illnesses and heart diseases, etc., overstretching the nation’s present inadequate health infrastructure.”
He said another concern is that, in the quest for attracting foreign investment for local growth and employment opportunities, Nigeria in the past 20 years slid to a dumping ground for all kinds of unregulated ‘unsound’ industrial practices and activities. “Thanks to President Buhari for recently addressing the ongoing theft of Nigerian jobs by foreigners, particularly Chinese and Indians, but the government must not stop here.
“Our recent survey carried out between September 2018 and February 2019, at the new Lagos-Ogun state industrial corridor - Ikorodu and Ogijo communities, revealed that about 90% of industries operating in those locations (mostly owned by Chinese and Indians) are operating below the required environmentally accepted standard. These companies openly release toxic substances into the atmosphere and ecosystem, in the name of recycling, while government regulatory agencies look the other way.
“Our finding substantiates that instead of ‘green recycling’, incessant ‘brown recycling’ activities takes place all over, we are stunned by how these complacent industries impact on the nation’s already huge uncalculated environmental and occupational costs. This unwrapping of the recycling industries’ ‘dirty little secret’ was met with shock and dismay,” said Adogame. “Our survey also revealed that babies, school children, women in these poorer communities are those most exposed to the recalcitrant pollutants.”
According to the Senior Programme Officer, SRADeV Nigeria, Mr. Victor Fabunmi, “From our survey, the country is presented with a nightmarish vision of where another lifestyle of ‘toxic colonialism’ and unregulated industry can lead us.