Govt shuts 24 churches over noise pollution

Thursday 30, April 2015

Lagos state Commissioner for Environment, Mr. Tunji Bello

Posted by Ambassador T. Brikins

TWENTY four churches and some mosques in Lagos have been shut in the last one year, for disobeying  environmental laws in the state. The churches, especially faced the full wrath of the law over noise pollution nuisance, often blaring from loud speakers during day service and  vigils.

 
The Director General of Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency, Rasheed Shabi, revealed  this yesterday at the 2015 Ministerial Press Briefing by the Ministry of the Environment. Noting that the subject was sensitive, Shabi said the clampdown on religious centres was the last resort following unsuccessful efforts to put the centres in check.
He said that while club houses and mosques   complied with the environmental laws following warnings, several churches were often in defiance to state pleas. According to him, religious houses create 50 per cent of the noise pollution in Lagos today.
“This accounts for the closure of 24 churches and mosques in the last one year. We received lots of complaints from Okota area of Lagos and we intervened.
“But when some of the churches refused to comply, we had to shut them down or have some of them relocate from the residential areas. Those allowed to reopen had to sign an undertaken that their noise would not disturb the neighborhood.
“Compliance was more convenient for the mosques, as many of them have now removed the loud speaker from the streets,” he said.

Comparing  significant improvement in compliance to guidelines on noise pollution in the state in 2014 as against 2013, he said, Noise pollution nuisance has abated from 13.44 per cent in 2013 to 30.02 per cent in 2014.
However, the non -compliance rate is still  high at  73.77 per cent for religious centres; 68.32 per cent for residential and 52.63 per cent for industrial sector.