The General Manager, Dr Dolapo Fasawe, made this known, according to a statement on Sunday, during the last management meeting for the year with senior members of the agency’s staff at Alausa, Ikeja.

Fasawe said the move was in tandem with the vision of the agency to increase its zonal offices to 20 by 2023 to tackle pollution in different parts of the state.

She said, “To effectively serve and reach out to larger society, we increased our zonal offices from four to 20 in a spate of four years. This noble move is to reduce bureaucratic hurdles and also improve response time.

“Like the existing ones, the new zonal offices will uphold the mandate of the agency and provide succour to citizens negatively affected by all forms of pollution in different parts of Lagos.

“There is the need to bring environmental regulation closer to Lagosians in response to the goal of COP27, which emphasises the urgent need to unite the world to tackle climate change. The additional three zonal offices are Mushin, Alimosho 3, and Kosofe and necessary equipment and manpower have been in place to facilitate the smooth running of these offices.”

This was disclosed in a document made available by the agency on Sunday.

LASEPA, in the document, noted that an initiative themed, ‘Eko Clean Air,’ has been organised by the agency to tackle air pollution and it identified the transportation sector as the highest contribution to air pollution.

It read, “ECA is an advocacy and behavioural modelling driving initiative which leverages a pan-stakeholder, bottom-up and inclusive model, towards raising the level of awareness, pro-action, and collaboration for monitoring and mitigating air pollution in Lagos.

“Air pollution is responsible for over 30, 000 premature deaths in Lagos in 2021. This is why we are piloting various projects under this framework towards achieving our climate action targets and in keeping with Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s mandate on environmental protection.

“The World Bank in 2018 identified the transport sector as the highest contribution to air pollution and to this end, the agency is working towards hybrid pilot bus in LASEPA, hybrid Bus Rapid Transit buses, and will collaborate with the Ministry of Transportation, Lagos Computerised Vehicle Inspection Service and the Federal Road Safety Corps on the plan to clamp down on vehicular emissions.”

A source in LASEPA, when contacted by our correspondent on Sunday, added that the agency had held an advocacy walk and established six air quality monitoring stations to assess air pollution.

We also have six air quality monitoring stations at Ikeja, Lekki, Jankara-Island, Ikorodu, Akoka and Abesan to alert for unfriendly air pollution, and aside from the awareness walk and the ECA initiative, we have also commenced aggressive advocacy, knowledge attitude and practice survey for behavioural change among residents,” the source said.

The General Manager, LASEPA, Dr Dolapo Fasawe, had earlier disclosed that 22,500 children were among the 30,000 people that died, representing 75 per cent.

Briefing journalists at her office in Alausa, Ikeja, the General Manager of LASEPA, Dr Dolapo Fasawe, said the agency received calls from concerned residents about the unfriendly environmental activities taking place at Salvation Avenue, off Ikorodu, Owode Onirin, Lagos.

She said a team from the agency which visited the place was refused entry and that the security guards guarding the place claimed the premises was private property.

She said “We, however, discovered during our second visit that the building which sits atop four plots of land with unknown address housed an illegal scrap yard that engages in nefarious activities such as storage of unwholesome processed foods, repackaging of drugs and juice drinks, improper destruction of expired drugs, chemicals, recycling of metals, as well as dismantling of electrical and electronics waste within the premises. It’s worrisome to note that people operate unlawfully in a residential environment unchallenged by neighbours. Individual selfish interests must not be allowed to supersede communal benefits. We must be mindful of who we are allowing into our neighbourhoods and consequences of our actions on the society.”