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Commissioner faults govt, industries on
pollution
By Steve Omolale
Head,
Property and Environment,
Lagos
For lacking the
political will to impose all the laws guiding environmental protection,
government at various levels has been blamed for the resultant environmental
degradation. Besides, manufacturing industries in the country should take a
part of the blame for indiscriminately dumping their effluent, said Ogun State
Commissioner for the Environment, Mr. Anthony Ojeshina.
Speaking in a television
programme on environment, monitored in Lagos, Ojesina said an instance of the
lackadaisical attitude of some state governments to the issue of environment is
their refusal to create the Ministry of the Environment, thereby leaving the
protection of their environment to unqualified individuals.
According to him, if the
government agencies in-charge of environmental protection were strict with
enforcement, other stakeholders in the sector would have been more committed
than they were.
Ojesina believes that
environmental pollution from the industries was responsible for about 50 per
cent loss in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country, advising that the
industries must put in place effluent treatment facilities to recycle their
waste. He also would want them to install pollution abatement equipment with
their obsolete factory equipment as a way of minimising environmental
pollution.
Another issue that is
bothering the commissioner is the pollution of groundwater in both Ogun and
Lagos states, as well as other states in the country.
He advocate the
construction of engineered landfill to reduce such incidence, regretting that
not a single of such facility could be found anywhere in the country.
“Rather, what we
have are glorified dump site, which adds to groundwater pollution up to the
third level,” he explained.
To therefore raise the
consciousness of Nigerians about environmental issues, Ojesina advocated the
introduction of “green technology s a subject in both the primary and
secondary schools. Besides, the industries should invest a certain percentage
of their profit into environmental management, while every Nigerian should be
an environment manager, he added.
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