Lagos seals over 352 Churches, Mosques, others

THE Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency, LASEPA, yesterday, disclosed that over 352 facilities including religious houses have been shut down across various parts of the state in the last year over noise pollution and other environmental infractions.

The General Manager of LASEPA, Dr Babatunde Ajayi, disclosed this in his office, Ikeja, while giving one year report of his stewardship to the media.

Ajayi said: ‘Residents are bad behaved in terms of complying with regulations. One major challenge of noise pollution is that after enforcement they comply for a while, before you know it, they go ballistic again. They go back to the same offence.

“Then we start the process again. The reason we have them to comply for a while is because they pay fines and we shut them down.

“There is no city in the world that does not leverage fines and penalties for violations. There must be consequences for actions.

“It’s not only Nigeria’s problem, is global. People tend to go back to bad behaviour.

“The use of microphones also at bus stops and religious houses are major concern. Even Christian worshippers come out with loudspeakers and microphones to preach in public.

“For noise pollution, the religious sector takes the highest because there is little or no control in terms of how you can set up religious houses going by our current regulations.

“It takes a strong-willed policy to have that in control. In Nigeria today some churches want to have two branches on a street or Mosques.

“We have had conversations with representatives of religious houses about why noise pollution is a bad idea and why they need to maintain less than 60 decibels for decorum during service, and the danger they are causing to the public as well as themselves. We do this engagement regularly.”

Source: The Advocate