… As Mobile Court Sentences Two Environmental Offenders
Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) has said that Ladipo and Oyingbo markets would be shut down from next Thursday till further notice for engaging in reckless waste dumping, refusal to pay for waste management services and poor waste management practice in the markets.
LAWMA’s Managing Director/CEO, Mr. Ibrahim Odumboni, added that the unwholesome environmental practices by traders in those markets, despite repeated warnings, called for necessary and immediate sanctions.
His words: “Our attention has been drawn to the deplorable state of the environment around Ladipo, Mushin, and Oyingbo Markets, resulting from reckless waste dumping by traders. Despite serving them abatement notices, they have continued the mindless environmental violation”.
“We are left with no other choice than to evoke the necessary sanction of shutting down the markets. This is also meant to serve as a deterrent to other non-compliant markets”, he added.
He noted that the authority had, in recent times, redoubled its efforts to ensure that business activities in all Lagos markets were carried out in a safe and clean environment.
Odumboni said: “We have intensified our sanitation efforts by deploying trucks to cart away refuse from known black spots across the metropolis, especially business facilities. However, these efforts are being thwarted by the activities of mischievous persons, who would rather dump waste indiscriminately on the roads, than pay for waste management services”.
He urged traders in other markets to adhere strictly to environmental hygiene or risk indefinite closure of their markets.
The Managing Director reiterated the determination of the agency to stamp out all forms of indiscriminate waste disposal in the metropolis, adding that the enforcement team had been mandated to monitor the environment and arrest persons bent on thwarting efforts of the Authority to make Lagos cleaner and livable.
He appealed to residents to imbibe the habit of effective waste management, by bagging and containerising waste for easy evacuation by assigned PSPs, adding that delays in the evacuation of waste by PSP should be reported to the concerned Authority, using its toll-free lines: 07080601020 and 617.
In a related development, a Mobile Court sitting in Oshodi sentenced two environmental offenders to one-year imprisonment with the option of payment of a Fine of N50,000 and one-month imprisonment, respectively. The offenders were apprehended for waste burning and dumping refuse in the drains during rainfall in the Ikeja and Lekki areas of the State.