The Nation Newspaper

Tag: noise pollution

  • Curbing the menace of noise pollution

    When I look at our dear country, the question that comes to my mind is, when shall we grow out of this present primordial stage?

    Anytime I wake up in the night to read, it is either one church is observing a vigil or another one is busy carrying out deliverance service on their members. In Port Harcourt where I live there are churches scattered all over and even the one mosque situated about three kilometers to my house is not exempted as early in the morning sounds emanate from the loud speakers calling their members to come for early morning prayers in the mosque. Along our streets, audio cassette sellers are busy dishing out  their own sounds from their strategically located speakers while self-acclaimed doctors dealing in herbal mixtures use their loud speakers to dish out wrong medical information to unsuspecting members of the public. The police escorts to bullion vehicles as well as government officials also contribute theirs  quota with sirens to the sound pool.

    Please,can’t we have noiseless zones in this country?.How do we intend to succeed in this part of the world when we are not given the right environment to develop our brains?At times different floors of a four storey building will be occupied by different churches and their services may clash such that the sounds emanating from their loud speakers can cause destructive interference (thanks to physicists). The annoying aspect of all this is that when one rises to fight this nuisance, the religious houses will dub one an agent of darkness.

    What a modern colonialism?

    I call on our governments, if they still exist, to enact laws that will regulate the noisy activities of these religious houses. The way we have industrial estates, that  should be the way we will have religious estates. Residential areas must be strictly residential in the real sense of it. If one runs away to the hotels to avoid the noise pollution, some churches have taken over the main halls in many hotels.

    Our religious leaders should tell us how their experiences were like all the time they visited London and other saner climes for their holidays. Also, even in the Middle East where both Christianity and Islam originated, do they have the type of noise pollution we have in this country?

    The most annoying aspect of our present government is that if a moslem governor starts regulating this noise pollution, the opposition political party will attempt to score political point by telling the citizens that the governor is carrying out a religious agenda just as the reverse would be the case if a Christian governor wants to rid the state of this noise pollution. The type of opposition we have in Nigeria today is such that if a governor wants to deal with teachers that forged certificates and dates of birth to secure teaching jobs, the opposition will go and join forces with the teachers and their relatives/sympathisers  to vote out the government from power.

    My only concern is the inability of our ministries of environment to rise up to the challenge. Socrates, it was that said that an unexamined life is not worth living. How then do we intend examining our life in the midst of our present noisy environment?

     

    Dr Paul John

    Port Harcourt,Rivers State.

  • SOS to National Conference on noise pollution

    SIR: I note with dismay, the non-inclusion of noise as one of the major environmental problems for consideration at the on-going National Conference. The issue and problem of noise ought to be spelt out to be understood and discussed by the delegates. There is need to ensure that the provision is made to handle noise issues as stipulated in the relevant laws of the country.

    The NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL STANDARDS AND REGULATIONS ENFORCEMENT AGENCY (ESTABLISHMENT) ACT, 2007 section (part) v: subsection 22 states that the agency, in consultation with appropriate authorities, shall:

    (a) Identify major noise sources, noise criteria and noise control technology; and (b) make regulations on noise, emission, control, abatement, as may be necessary to preserve and maintain public health and welfare. (2) The Agency shall enforce compliance with existing regulations and recommend programmes to control noise originating from industrial, commercial, domestic, sports, recreational, transportation or other similar activities.

    (3) A person who violates the Regulations made pursuant to sub-section (1) of this section commits an offence and shall on conviction be liable to a fine not exceeding N50,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or to both such fine and imprisonment and an additional fine of N5,000 for every day the offence subsists.

    (4) Where an offence under subsection (3) of this section is committed by a body corporate, it shall on conviction be liable to a fine not exceeding N500,000 and an additional fine of N10,000 for every day the offence subsists

    These have not been implemented over the years hence noise levels have continued to increase in the nation. Nigeria, and in fact, most African nations apart from South Africa and Egypt, have continued to gloss over the issue of noise as it is viewed more as a natural phenomenon that must be endured.

    Creating awareness of the negative effects of increasing noise levels in our society today would definitely help us appreciate noise, not only as a nuisance, but also a destroyer. Increasing noise levels have led to more cases of hearing impairment even among the youth. Today, health problems like high blood pressure have become rampant and only few people have paused to ask why it is so. Curbing noise will settle many health issues that our health sector is not even equipped to handle.

    Many problems Nigeria is facing are preventable and noise is a central factor in these problems. It is hoped that the national conference will heed this call so that noise issues can be tackled alongside other national problems.

    • Joy Oluchi Uguru

    President, Acoustical Society of Nigeria (ASON)

    Lagos

  • Lagos tackles noise pollution

    Lagos tackles noise pollution

    Relief may soon come the way of Lagos residents. The state government, in its efforts to further sanitise the environment, has approved a sound limit of 55 decibels during the day and 45 decibels at night for places designated as residential areas, while the noise level in industrial areas will not exceed 90 decibels.

    With these limits, the state government is set to come down hard against noise pollution. The government not only ordered all churches, mosques, bars and relaxation joints to pull down their loud speakers and reduce the noise pollution their activities are constituting to the environment, threatening to seal off any religious centre that flouts the directive.

    The General Manager, Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA), Rasheed Adebola Shabi, said: “Anything exceeding this can be described as noise and would be categorised as a pollutant once it can be proved to constitute an inconvenience to neighbours and other residents in the area.”

    At an interactive and an enlightenment forum organised by the agency for residents of Oworo, in the Kosofe council area of the state on noise pollution, Shabi, who described noise as “any unpleasant or unwanted sound,” said where unregulated, noise pollution could lead to sleep disorder, high blood pressure, hearing impairment, deafness, and might be at the root of other complicated illnesses.

    Describing noise as a product of increased urbanisation due to increase in population, he identified known sources of noise to come from mobile phones, television and radio, vehicles, train or aeroplanes, and factory or religious activities.

    He challenged the community development associations, traditional institutions to assist the government in ensuring that the people adhere to the directive and reduce the pollution level in other to promote good health of their residents.

    The Bashorun of Oworoland, Chief Jelili Lawal, praised the government for the initiative, assuring that the traditional institution would swing into action and ensure that all tenants and land owners in the town support the government in the onerous task of reducing noise pollution in Oworo.

    He said: “Let all tenants and all those who have bought lands from us know that we are with the government on this and you would have us to contend with us first before we report you to the government if you will not comply.”

    A resident, Ambassador Lawrence Tunde Bade-Afuye (rtd), who was the brain behind the forum, urged the government to follow the forum with stiff sanction as according to him, “the people we are addressing here are so difficult that only a sanction would compel them to conform.”

    The diplomat, who said he no longer finds the noise menace tolerable, campaigned for sanctions on mosques and churches that fail to remove their loud speakers.

  • S.O.S. to LASG on noise pollution

    SIR: An appeal is hereby made to the Lagos state Governor, Babatunde Fashola and Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon. Bola Ikuforiji, to come to the rescue of the people residing around 13, Agbado Road, Iju Ishaga from going deaf owing to the unceasing noise that usually emanate both day and night from the loudspeakers of the Kingdom Force Assembly – a religious house.

    The attention of the overseer of the church has been drawn times without number in the past to the inconvenience, danger and health hazard to which the people living around the church were being subjected to through the thunderous noise from the church’s loudspeakers. All appeals have continued to fall on deaf ears. To worsen the matter, on one occasion, the Pastor used his connection with the Divisional Police Officer at the Red House, Iju to harass the complaining residents all in an attempt to silence them and to force them to resign to their fate.

    Without mincing words, noise pollution emanating from the activities of record sellers and places of worship across the length and breadth of Lagos State has continued to be a hard nut to crack more so when there is no law put in place to check menace as is done in civilized and other democratic nations of the world. In a recent report, Nigeria was ranked as the second noisiest nation in the world and this damning report might have informed a recent a phone-in progamme aired on Radio Faji FM in Alausa during which listeners subjected to any form of inconvenience through noise pollution in Lagos State were advised, at the close of the programme, to make protest to Lagos State Ministry of Environment.

    Now is the time for the Lagos State House of Assembly to enact a law that would regulate and save Lagosians from going deaf owing to the impunity of users of loud speakers that cause untold hardship to the people of Lagos State. There is no doubt that when the relevant law is enacted by the State Assembly, the state governor would not hesitate in giving his assent to it.

    • Bamidele Odet

    Iju-Ishaga, Lagos