Citizens living around Olusosun and far off areas like Ikosi, CMD, Ikosi, Magodo, Ojota and even Oregun are groaning under the environmental effect of the Olusosun dump site.
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The site which was recently shut down by the Lagos state government now emits dangerous smoke which affects the people in the environs and even far off areas, the smoke fog also affects visibility on a daily basis and the Lagos state government has been silent to the cries of residents and commuters in these areas.
YMonitor spoke with citizens at Old toll gate bus-stop, one of them described how unfortunate the situation is.
“It’s quite unfortunate, in Nigeria we say we have government when we don’t have, in the first place, no government with reasonable sense should have a dump site where people reside..Secondly, as time went on, the government in its own wisdom might have known that this will cause environmental pollution thereby taking a first step to stop it on time, they allowed it to deteriorate to this point..Now after causing a lot of damages to people’s health, they are trying to fight off the fire for over one month..A rich state like Lagos is finding it difficult to put out this fire..This smoke affects Magodo, Ikosi, Ojota, Ogudu, Ikeja environ… He said.
Another commuter working On CMD road told YMonitor that: “The smoke is affecting us a lot, it is dangerous to health, at times if we stay here for about twelve hours because this is where I work, When we leave here to another place, we realise that our cloth is smelling, so when cloth is smelling, what of our inner part. It will be difficult for people who have been living here to evacuate, the only solution I feel is for government to station a fire service truck at the site”…
People were seen putting cloth covering on their noses so as to prevent them from inhaling the smoke. Schools were shut down for almost a week because of the intensity of the smoke. Residents told us that a major government school at Ikosi which they refuse to name was shut down for close to a week due to the smoke. Yet the Lagos state government has been silent as usual, and continue to pretend that it is unaware of the environmental hazard this phenomenon is having on citizens living close and far off from the site.
Another citizen residing near Magodo told us that “The smoke is really affecting us, whether are indoors or outdoor. We cannot seat anywhere, both day and night. The smoke chokes us. In spite of how far we are from it, the smoke affects us.. It gets to a stage when everywhere becomes blue with smoke. The fog is much, government should help find a solution to it”
YMonitor put a call through to the ministry of environment, but it was not answered, an email was also sent to the ministry but it was not replied. The only response of the Lagos state government has been to shut down the site, with no effort at reducing the flaring smoke.