The Lagos State government issued a warning to its citizens over the weekend to stop engaging in harmful environmental practices that could jeopardize efforts to safeguard the environment from degradation and other repercussions of climate change.
The state government further stated that any individual or group found to be causing environmental degradation in any way could face legal action from its different environmental sustainability agencies.
Tokunbo Wahab, the state’s commissioner for the environment and water resources, delivered the charge this past weekend during a ministerial press briefing to mark the first year of governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu’s second term in office.
The commissioner disclosed that the state government is devoting enormous resources to preventing environmental deterioration in all its manifestations, with a particular focus on combating climate change and its consequential impacts on human well-being and the ecology.
In order to realize the goal of a sustainable environment, he disclosed that the state government would step up efforts to ensure that environmental regulations are followed.
Wahab revealed that in the last three months, 367 enforcement operations were conducted by the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA), which functions as the state’s environmental police, in homes, markets, hotels, warehouses, sales points, industries, worship centers, nightclubs, and other locations for various environmental violations. Others who discharged raw sewage into the lagoon were served abatement notices.
He issued a warning, saying that because of the implications for human health, LASEPA has greater authority than ever to guarantee complete adherence to state environmental legislation of 2017 throughout the state in order to protect the environment from further degradation.
As the commissioner clarified that his ministry’s and its agencies’ various enforcement operations throughout the state served the public interest, he also said that the state government would not fold its hands and let avaricious people keep undermining its reform initiatives to protect the environment for a higher standard of living and sustainable growth.
Wahab warned against unfavorable environmental behaviors that would result in climate change action, expressing concern about the state’s poor air quality levels in several areas as reported in LASEPA’s weekly updates of the Air quality index.
