We receive average of 100 noise pollution petitions per week —LASEPA boss

SEGUN KASALI engages the General Manager of LASEPA, Mr Antonio Ayodele, over the worsening noise pollution in Lagos State.

How bad is noise pollution in the state?

Noise pollution is a very delicate situation which the state will do all within its power to contain. It is becoming alarming. It wasn’t as bad as it is some five-10 years ago and the reasons are not far-fetched.

So many new churches are springing up, even those which are not under the canopy of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) all in the name of ‘I heard a call. I need to serve God’ and ‘Almighty God has given a mandate to serve Him by establishing a church.’ If he has a little fund to acquire a shop, he will start a church. Or if he has a two-bedroom or three-bedroom (apartment), he can convert the sitting room to a church and from there, he would start gathering followers. By sheer providence, he might build a bigger church and they are doing this to the detriment of their immediate neighbours. This is because in a church, there will be time for praise worship, time for dancing and for you to enjoy your praises and dancing, there is the need for you to apply some musical instrument.

You can imagine it in a residential area. People have different sleeping hours. Some people enjoy their sleep during the night in a very serene environment and you are also bringing up a church in that environment and you want to run vigil every night.

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Enforcement of the environmental law to this effect seems weak…

Enforcement is not weak. Our approach is, first and foremost, we try to apply what is called Alternative Dispute Resolution Method. We feel that a lot of people don’t know and so we try to do enlightenment. If we get a petition against the person generating the noise pollution, be it a church, mosque or user of generator or any of these noise equipment, we invite them to a meeting and we let them know that if your noise level is above this level, it has become a nuisance. And they tend to be good students at that level and we make them sign an undertaking that they will correct all we have highlighted in the process of education, and they usually sign.

The level of compliance shows that they do comply for a while, particularly churches. They do comply. But maybe after one or two years, the same petition will come, that this church has started again. So, we don’t have a choice at that level but to enforce. It is not that we are weak.

It was learnt that people come in droves to report neighbours over noise nuisance. What is average per week?

We receive a lot of petitions on noise pollution. On the average per week, I would say, above 100.

What do they complain about mostly?

They complain about different forms of noise pollution from churches, mosques, neighbours who put on generators and those who use heavy-duty generators

Would you consider as genuine, complaints from generator owners against other users since they both pollute the air?

They are. We have received series of complaints about generators. It is either the noise or the emission. You know, the emission is dangerous to human health. If it goes into your bloodstream, it prevents oxygen from staying in your blood and when you don’t have the oxygenated blood, you are dying. This is because by this time, the bloodstream is polluted with carbon monoxide.

Are you thinking of banning the use of certain kinds of generators in the state or set age limit for usage?

We might explore the option of setting age limit but we cannot enforce a ban because what led to the use of generator is poor power supply and we need power for the existence of man on earth. Power gives you every comfortable thing you need and if you don’t have it, you have to look for it in an alternate form. What we can do is to ensure that people buy new generators rather than tokunbo and ensure servicing from time to time.

Is there any kind of partnership with other stakeholders?

There is but it has not been established to the desired level.

Why?

Obviously, most of the manufacturers of these devices are not based here. Most of the people we have here are distributors and they don’t have power to take certain decisions. There should be an arrangement that enables the owner of a used generator, which is giving problems, to give it back for a brand new one by adding more money to the used one. We are not doing that yet because most of the people who are distributors here are not owners of the business.

Do people also bring community crises here over implementation of communal codes on generator usage, like setting time limits to put them off?

People don’t bring such, but through some of our resolution methods, we try to recommend that you don’t use your generator beyond midnight. It is not even safe for the owner because the fuel in it can be exhausted. What if it catches fire in the night while you are in deep sleep? How do you combat that problem? It is not advisable to sleep with the generator on except it is an industrial generator. So, we recommend as much as possible that once its 12 a.m., try to put off your generator.

In the face of dwindling electric supply, don’t you foresee an aggravated public noise situation ahead?

Light is improving now, according to the minister of power, water and housing. Generation has improved but transmission is the problem. And it is because the transmission infrastructure we have in the country can only take 5,500 to 6,000 megawatts and generation has gone in the range of 7,500 megawatts. But what we are looking at in Lagos State now is to go into the area of embedded power generation, in the sense that you will not distribute your light through the national grid. You will distribute it through the facilities of distribution companies. If you have that complementing what the Federal Government is giving, the use of generators will go down. How many people want to put on their generators? It is because there is no power.

Where are the most notorious noise areas in the state?

From our data over the years, we found out that Alimosho is the noisiest local government in the state and the reasons are not far-fetched. Alimosho is the biggest local government in the state and it is the most populated, so you should expect that.