Nigeria, the most populous country in
Africa and self-acclaimed giant of Africa gives room for all and sundry
to come into its sphere and conduct business transactions. This happens
even as the measure of ease of doing business in the country is very
low. Most of the business activities going down in the country have
impact on the environment whether negatively or otherwise. We all know
the positive impact; like job creation, economic growth, etc. But what
the majority of us are oblivious of is the negative impact on public and
human health. We are aware of the oil spill in the Niger Delta and the
ensuing fight by the citizens of the area for clean-up to be carried
out. What we do not know is that those small companies next door to you
and I pollute the environment in a way that if accumulated can surpass
the impact of the activities of the oil companies. This is not to say
that I support the activities of the oil and gas companies, in fact, I
am 100 per cent in support of the struggle for the clean-up of the Niger
Delta.
Has anyone ever queried where the waste
generated by chemical, pharmaceutical, fast moving consumer goods, steel
and iron, textile, animal feeds, telecoms, paint, pesticide, (and the
company in your locality which is not listed here), etc go to? I doubt
if the common man has ever stopped for a moment to think about that. I
do not blame him, when he is thinking of survival and where the next
daily bread will come from. And for those that have ever given it a
thought, I bet you just shove it aside when you cannot seem to find an
answer to it just as almost every other matter concerning our dear
country. Majority of these companies use chemicals which waste is termed
hazardous waste harmful to our environment, contaminates ground water
when improperly disposed and affects human and public health. Guess
what, the end is yet to be seen because there are about 50,000 chemicals
in use around the world today and approximately 1000 chemicals are
being produced every year.
Now, how many of these chemicals are in use in Nigeria? Let the authority in charge of the environment answer us if they have the data. This is a wakeup call for everyone, both citizens and the authority, to start paying attention to what is going on in our immediate environment and start asking the right questions as it pertains to environmental sustainability because we have no other country we can call ours except our dear country, Nigeria. Some of the hazardous waste of these companies include organic chlorides, zinc and so on.
Article by Suhaib Arogundade, esarogundade@gmail.com
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