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Lagos State Environmental and Special Offences Court has sentenced 30 men and women arrested in various parts of the state for illegal dumping of waste on the highways to two months imprisonment.
Lagos State Environmental and Special Offences Court has sentenced 30 men and women arrested in various parts of the state for illegal dumping of waste on the highways to two months imprisonment.
The Commissioner for the Environment, Dr. Muiz Banire disclosed this while speaking with newsmen at Ikeja on the outcome of several warnings given to Lagosians on how they should manage their waste.
Banire explained that the time has come, where definite provisions of the law have to be applied in order to rid the state of all environmental nuisances.
The arrested convicts were prosecuted under the State Environmental Laws, which prohibit indiscriminate dumping of refuse in unauthorized places with a jail term of two months or an option of N10, 000 fine each.
The convicts were caught dumping illegally around Ojota, Allen Avenue, Oregun, Yaba and were subsequently arraigned before the State Environmental and Special Offences Court which convicted them having pleaded guilty.
It could be recalled that upon assumption of office in July this year, Banire stated emphatically that, a more stringent action has to be taken, if the state has to meet its target of turning around the deplorable and degenerating state of its environment into a habitable and conducive one that will attract more foreign investors.
He further stated that as a prelude to this, the Public Affairs Department of the Ministry had carried out public enlightenment campaigns, in motor parks, markets and several parts of the state, in order to sensitize the people.
Similarly the ministry has placed newspaper advertisements, and radio/TV jingles also in an attempt to sensitize Lagosians on the dangers associated with the illegal dumping on road medians and verges without appreciable results.
In view of this, the state government is now poised to prosecute any person caught to be dumping refuse inside the drains, medians, verges, triangular lay byes or other unauthorized places across the state.
He therefore appealed to Lagosians to desist from this unhygienic and unsanitary act, as environmental health officers and KAI brigade corps have been posted to all the local government councils and development council areas to enforce, as well as arrest offenders, stressing that the state government is now poised to fulfill its electoral promise of beautifying and restoring back the beauty of the state into a green and habitable environment that would attract more foreign investors.