A coalition of
civil society groups, grassroots campaigners and water unionists have vowed to
resist the Lagos State Environmental Management and Protection Bill which
was
passed into law on Tuesday by the Lagos House of Assembly, less than two weeks
after the groups challenged key sections of the bill at a public hearing
organised by the House Committee on the Environment.
The groups also
asked Governor Akinwunmi Ambode not to assent to the bill but rather send it
back to the House to throw it open again for wider consultations and inputs
from Lagos residents.
The bill,
which harmonises and merges eight environment laws in the state into one, is
titled, ‘A Bill for a Law to Consolidate all Laws relating to the Environment
for the Management, Protection and Sustainable Development of the Environment
in Lagos State and for Connected Purposes.’
After its
passage, Speaker Mudashiru Obasa directed the Clerk of the House, Azeez Sanni,
to send a copy of the bill to Mr. Ambode for his assent to transform it into
law.
The House
members had cut short their six weeks recess to attend to the bill and in the
same week took the first and second readings as well as the public hearing on
the bill.
After the
bill’s passage, the members went on recess and would resume on March 28.
Activists
particularly decried sections of the law that guaranteed payment for contractual
services and concessions with an Irrevocable Service Payment Order (ISPO) as
first line charge on the state internally-generated revenue.
They said if
the law is assented to by Governor Ambode, the state would use taxpayers money
to pay the corporate entities, without fail before considering payment for
other services like salaries, healthcare, education or road construction.
The activists
maintained that the bill gave too much powers to the Lagos Commissioner for
Environment, criminalises sinking of boreholes, and imposes fines and sets
prison terms for any Lagos resident that sells or transports water, among
others.
The groups
criticising the passage include: Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the
Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations, Civil
Service, Technical and Recreational Services Employees (AUPCTRE), Peace and
Development Project (PEDEP) and Centre for Children’s Health Education,
Orientation and Protection (CEE-Hope). Others are Center for Dignity and
African Women Water Sanitation and Hygiene Network (AWWASHN), among others.
ERA/FoEN
Deputy Executive Director, Akinbode Oluwafemi, said: “We are too shocked at
this clandestine passage by members of the House which was so hurriedly done
that it smacks of disrespect for Lagos residents who are already victims of the
Lagos government deliberate withholding of funding to the water sector to pave
way for privatisation”
Mr. Oluwafemi
pointed out that, “The hasty convergence and recourse to recess by the
lawmakers after passing this law is not only suspect, it is a conspiracy
against the people.”
The National
President of AUPCTRE, Solomon Adelegan, said that: “The water privatisation
plans of the Lagos government which we have stood against and mobilised against
till date is now being imposed on the people using the instrumentality of a law
that was not properly debated, and fraught with anti-people sections.
“We will not
sit back idly and watch our water infrastructure put in the hands of a few
capitalists who have vowed to mortgage our collective future.”
The Executive
Director of Peace and Development Project (PEDEP), Francis Abayomi, pointed out
that Lagos residents would take to the streets and use every peaceful means to
resist the environmental law, even as he asked: “What is the logic behind
members of the House passing this obnoxious law and then going on recess
immediately as if they are absconding?”
Mr. Abayomi
said the environment law as currently passed would burden Lagosians and is the
guise to introduce the PPP in the water sector which Lagosians have “roundly
rejected.’’
The Executive
Director of CEE-HOPE, Betty Abah, said that “it is disheartening to know that a
law concocted by a few capitalists could be so easily passed within two weeks
of a Public Hearing. We will resist it.”
The group said
among a long list, it had already recommended the solution to the challenges to
accessing water in Lagos in a document titled: “Lagos Water Crisis: Alternative
Roadmap for the Water Sector” launched October 2016.
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