The National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) has closed 46 facilities across 10 states in Nigeria due to various violations of the National Environmental Regulations (NERs).
This was contained in a circular signed on Friday, July 5, 2024, in Abuja by Mrs. Amaka Ejiofor, the agency’s assistant director of press.
These breaches, according to her, which were committed in the states of Borno, Gombe, Ogun, Enugu, Edo, Osun, Oyo, Plateau, Nasarawa, and Taraba, include infractions of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Act and the facilities’ incapacity to create and carry out an Environmental Management Plan (EMP).
Other grounds given by the spokesperson for carrying out the exercise were a lack of an effluent treatment plant, the inability to obtain the appropriate permits for their operations, bad housekeeping, and failure to submit a thorough Environmental Audit Report (EAR), among others.
She went on to express the displeasure of the director general of NESREA, Dr. Innocent Barikor, over the non-compliance status of many facilities, warning that the trend was detrimental to both the environment and the health of the public.
“It is disheartening that these errant facilities carried on their operations in a manner that endangered the environment despite Notices of Compliance Concerns served on them as required by law,” Dr. Barikor lamented.
As a result, the director general pledged that the regulatory body would continue to implement the requirements of the 35 NERs and would not fail to impose suitable penalties on violators because the laws were enacted to ensure the effective management of human activities and society’s growth.
“I encourage Nigerians to be true environmental vanguards by obeying the laws and reporting any environmental violations,” he said.
By Etta Michael Bisong, Abuja
