Lagos State Government has reaffirmed its commitment to sustaining the reintroduced monthly environmental sanitation exercise, stressing that the initiative is now a permanent feature of efforts to promote a cleaner and healthier environment across the state.
The assurance was given during the second edition of the monthly environmental sanitation exercise held simultaneously across Lagos on Saturday.
While the wife of the Lagos State Governor, Dr. Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu, participated in the exercise in Alimosho Local Government Area alongside the Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab; the Special Adviser to the Governor on Environment, Rotimi Akodu; members of the Committee of Wives of Lagos State Officials (COWLSO), and other senior government officials, the Head of Service, Mr. Bode Agoro, led monitoring activities in the Apapa area of the state.
Speaking with journalists after the exercise, Wahab commended residents of Alimosho for maintaining a clean environment, describing the council as one of the cleanest local government areas in Lagos.
He said: “We observed some local governments are very clean and this local government seems to be one of them. Here we cleaned up some areas. What we have to do is to encourage the chairman of the local government area and his team, the honourable member of the House, to do much more, more engagement with the people with cleaning the environment. You can see that they have cleaned the environment, they also have their own compactors to cart away the waste so the chairman is well done.”
The commissioner reiterated the government’s resolve to sustain the monthly sanitation exercise despite recent festivities.
According to him, “We also made it clear to Lagosians in respect of the holidays and the festivities, the commitment to the environment is unique. We had our Sallah three days ago, yesterday was a big festival for those that know but today we must clean our environment because we have a commitment that every last Saturday of the month is for Lagos environmental sanitation day.”
Addressing concerns about compliance by commercial transport operators and residents, Wahab said the government would continue public enlightenment campaigns to deepen participation.
“In fairness to commercial buses we didn’t find most of them on the road, just very few. We have already communicated to the right people,” he said.
On residents who failed to participate, he added: “On the citizens we have to keep communicating with them on why they have to take in this culture and spend two hours in a whole month to clean up their environment. We are trying to create a culture and that is a dominant culture of a clean environment in Lagos State. After a while we will do the assessment also.”
The commissioner clarified that the state was not enforcing movement restrictions during the exercise.
“We are not imposing restrictions. We are fine with what I have seen. We are taking the message of conviction. This is a thing that has been off for almost ten years, so bringing it back with a different demography, youth population, then we must find a way to communicate it,” he stated.
Also speaking, the Head of Service, Mr. Bode Agoro, underscored the health benefits of maintaining a clean environment.
“We are serious about cleaning our environment. Nobody likes to live in a dirty environment. You don’t feel good, you don’t feel happy. And you fall sick, look at all sorts of illnesses, airborne diseases going right all over the place. So the more we clean our environment, the healthier we’ll be. So it’s encouraging, it can be better for sure,” he said.
Agoro appealed to residents to embrace environmental sanitation voluntarily, stressing that the government’s primary objective was behavioural change rather than punishment.
“It’s not about punishment. It’s about encouraging them to desist from such behavior. Of course, there are sanctions. If you throw dirt on the road or stuff like that, there are sanctions. And there’s enforcement,” he noted.
He added: “The Ministry of Environment will do the appropriate enforcement. If you violate the sanitation law, there must be sanctions. But then we want a situation where we don’t need to enforce those sanctions. We want to create an environment where people automatically know that it is wrong to throw dirt on the road.”
