Stop dumping refuse in wrong places, lawmakers tell constituents

Members of the Lagos State House of Assembly representing Lagos Mainland constituencies 1 and 2, Hons. Ibrahim Owolabi and Moshood Oshun have assured constituents that they will do all in their power to ensure that the government comes to their aid in tackling environmental challenges.

They spoke at the Lagos State House of Assembly constituency stakeholders meeting which held simultaneously in all the 40 constituencies in the state on Wednesday.

The theme of this year’s meeting was, ‘Environmental Challenges: Community engagement to facilitate lasting solution’.

The focus of the meeting was to engage all constituents across the whole state on the current environmental challenges facing the state.

Speaking at the the Mainland local government venue at Oyingbo, Owolabi said the constituency is a commercial hub with lots of trading activities and big markets with a huge population which is responsible for large amount of waste in the area as well as drainage problem.

He however appealed to his people not to dump refuse indiscriminately urging them to use the appropriate channel to dispose their waste so that it would be easy to cart away the refuse by those saddled with that responsibility.

Speaking in the same vein at the Yaba local council development area venue of his constituency meeting, Oshun told his constituents that flooding in most cases was caused by them because they block the drainages with refuse from their homes therefore blocking the flow of water whenever it rains.

Oshun who is the chairman, Ad-hoc committee of the Assembly on Environment, said the committee’s tour of some parts of the state revealed that even when government is clearing the drains, citizens were blocking them with refuse especially empty water bottles and sachets, they dump them inside gutters, adding that “we are the ones doing ourselves and we all have to reprimand anybody we see doing that”.

“Despite efforts being put in place to sensitize residents on the need to protect the environment, some still prefer to violate the Environmental Law and involve in actions capable of frustrating government’s efforts and huge investment in the sector,” Oshun said.

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The lawmakers appealed to their constituents to comply with the environmental laws of the state “and embrace attitudinal change and join hands with the government in a renewed commitment to preserve the environment”

They said, “the stakeholders meeting is also to involve our various communities on how we can re-orientate ourselves on the need to properly handle our environmental challenges to rid Lagos of its recurrent waste challenges.

“How the communities can come up with suggestions and bring an end to the lingering threat of environmental challenges which we believe would be achieved.

They therefore urged their constituents to stop indiscriminately dumping of refuse on streets, drainages, and major highways in the state “because it has hazardous impact of environmental challenges in the state”.

Owolabi spoke on his primary healthcare programme with focus on malaria and diabetes which are the major health issues faced in his constituency.

“Diabetes and malaria are the biggest issue we have in this constituency. One, it is due to the way that we eat. Second is that all the stagnant water are breeding mosquitoes

“Hence, we have more people infested with malaria due to more mosquitoes we have. This is why we run free healthcare programmes to ensure that people remain healthy”, Owolabi said.