Lagos makes a U-turn on sanitation restriction

Lagos State Government on Tuesday made a U-turn on its stance not to waive restriction on movement during monthly environmental sanitation for any reason.

The government said there would be free movement of human and vehicular activities during the April edition of the exercise to allow students, invigilators and other stakeholders to participate effectively in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination organized by Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board  expected to be held across the country on Saturday.

Commissioner for the Environment, Mr. Tunji Bello, who made this known, explained that the government changed its mind because of appeals from parents and stakeholders in the education sector.

The commissioner said, “As a responsive and responsible administration, it becomes imperative for the government to waive the restriction of movement order in order not to jeopardise the future of these innocent children/wards, whose other counterparts in other parts of the federation will write the same examination.

“We as a government value the education of our children very dearly, but we shall no longer succumb to individual, organization, group, government or examination bodies request for a waiver in future. The fact remains that we all know as individuals, groups and bodies that the last Saturday of every month is observed as sanitation in Lagos.

“We expect event planners and planning officers in the private and public sectors to arrange their programmes outside 7am to 10am, which is the stipulated time for the exercise.”

Bello said future requests would not be granted and whoever chose to flout the restriction order in the future would have contravened the state environmental sanitation laws.

He pointed out that the monthly sanitation exercise was a law passed by the state House of Assembly and, as such, must be respected.

He advised examination bodies like WAEC, NECO and JAMB to respect the state laws and not fix their future examinations on the state sanitation day.

He urged Lagosians to actively participate in the April sanitation despite the lifting of the restriction of movement order.

He advised that the cleaning of drains should be given special attention because of the rainy season.

Bello said, “As earlier warned by meteorologists, the state is going to experience intense rains with heavy thunderstorm.

“On our part as a responsible government, we have embarked on massive clearing, maintenance and dredging of canals across the state.”