Lagos Vows To Punish Residents Dumping Refuse On Roads, Drainages

The Lagos State Government has vowed to punish severely any resident of the state apprehended dumping refuse on roads and drainages across the state.
Special Adviser to the Governor on Civic Engagement, Kehinde Joseph gave this warning on Thursday at the sensitization programme on Environmental Protection and Management law of Lagos State, held at the Yaba Local Council Development Area, LCDA, Yaba, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria.
“Let me say here that indiscriminate dumping of refuse on our roads, drainages and canals will be viewed with all seriousness it deserves,” he said, adding that apart from the various health hazards that the practice had brought, the prevalence of flood ravaging communities and destroying properties should serve as warning to all to desist from the unwholesome attitude.
Joseph said the Cleaner Lagos Initiative, CLI, which is a part of the new law represented a holistic approach to achieve a cleaner and healthier Lagos, as the initiative would give room for private investors’ participation in solid waste management and encourage the adoption of best practices in the management of the environment, particularly the deployment of high-tech equipment in solid waste collection and disposal.
The special adviser said the current administration believed strongly that this approach, apart from achieving a healthy environment, would create business and job opportunities for the teeming populace of the state.
He appealed to residents of Mainland Federal Constituency to embrace the CLI and ensure its successful implementation, saying that every household in this new initiative was expected to put refuse generated in the waste bags and wait for operators to collect while pedestrian were equally expected to put their waste in the bins that would be provided along the roads by the operators.
Joseph lamented that some PSP operators had been trying to sabotage the new initiative by deliberately dumping refuse on the road at night, saying that government had been able to apprehend some of them.
Chairman, Yaba LCDA, Omiyale Adeyemo said the council was ready to key into the programme in a bid to get rid of filth in the state, adding that the council would hold regular sensitization programme to sensitise residents on the new initiative.
“Governor Ambode is a pacesetter; we in Yaba will support this programme. We will key into it the way we did to the former PSP programme. We will replicate this new initiative in our area,” he said.
PMNews