Lagos shuts 40 religious houses

August 4, 2015 –  Not less than 40 religious organisations(churches and mosques)  clubs, hotels and industries have been shut by the Lagos State Government for contravening  guidelines on noise, air and environmental pollutions.

The state government also said categorically said that it would not re-open Hardley Apartments, Victoria Island, owned by for ex-Super Eagles striker, Kanu Nwankwo until the management complies with stipulated guidelines.  The hotel and MITV were shut on Monday.

General Manager, Lagos State Environment Protection, LASEPA, Engr. Ademola Shabi who disclosed this after the operation explained that the agency discovered that the emission from their generator was causing serious air pollution in the area when visited.

He said the outfit would have to pay fines to the state government and must sign an MoU with the state government committing itself to comply with the pollution standard in the state adding that 30 religious outfits were shut in the last two days of the enforcement.

He added that 10 industries, night clubs and other business outfits were sealed by the agency for failing to abate nuisance after several letters were written to them on the matter.

Shabi lamented that the agency has received thousands of complaints from residents in the state over the increase pollution.

“When one is expose to noise level is about 150 percent decibel for 6 hours, such person could have deafness. In industrial areas, noise level is meant to be at 90 decibel in the day and at night it should be 80 decibel. In areas where we called mixed (residents and industry), during the day, the noise pollution is expected to be at 65 decibel and at night 55 decibel.

“In the last four years, we have been receiving lot of complains from the residents of Lagos state complaining over the increase in the level of noise pollution in the state especially from religious house and club houses,” he added.

The general manager explained that on realizing this, the agency embarked  on sensitizations across the state to inform residents on the hazard of pollution but insisted that residents have failed to comply.

“And when we seal, we tell the owner of the outfit to correct certain things before such outfits could be reopened,” Shabi emphasized.

The general manager stressed that shutting religious houses is not to witch-hunt but to correct the anomalies in the society.

He noted “For religious house, we don’t ask them to pay fines but they are mandates to sign an Memorandum of Understanding, MoU with the state government, stating that they will comply with the laws.”

“When we did the noise pollution audit in Ikorodu, we discovered that iron and steel companies contribute over 80 percent of the pollution load in that axis. But through our continuous monitoring, it has reduced to 50 percent pollution load.