The Lagos State Government, Monday announced plans to collaborate with the team from the African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC) as part of efforts to explore various avenues for sustainable urban interventions across the metropolis.
The Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Mr Tokunbo Wahab made this known while receiving the ACRC Team on a courtesy visit at Alausa, said the collaboration would further improve the commitment to foster inclusive urban transformation and resilience in Lagos State.
In his words: "I would like to express appreciation to this team for giving Lagos the opportunity to be part of those five cities in the continent that you chose for this project. For those who are familiar with Lagos, it's a very unique state. Unique in every sense. Lagos is the smallest state in Nigeria in terms of landmass".
He said Lagos on the map of Nigeria is just like a dot with a size of 3,575 square kilometres of land and one third of it is water, the Atlantic Ocean is by the south of Lagos. It also has creeks, the lagoons as well as the rivers and still accomodate10% of the country's population.
He added that the only other state that is on Lagos boundary is Ogun State saying this is the reason most of the water projects in Lagos State are sited in Ogun state in order to have a clean water source.
He said Lagos is also a state that is below sea level as such, the state is exposed to the risk of climate change in two different ways saying sometimes when it rains, it rain excessively (recalled that it rained for about 24 hours in the state on last Saturday) and sometimes the heat is excessive as well.
He said sometimes when it rains, the sea level rises, which usually causes flash flooding because there will be a lockup and when it locks up, it means storm water cannot discharge into the lagoon or the Atlantic.
He said despite some of these occurrence, most people still play the ostrich when it comes to climate issues but the government knows for a fact that science doesn't lie as such Climate change is real.
Wahab noted that the state government sees and have accepted these challenges as such is taking very different approaches in tackling them.
He stressed that the State Government continues to provide resilient infrastructure all year round across the state and ensure all year round cleaning and dredging of secondary collectors and primary channels.
He stated further that the government had put in place pumping stations in difficult lowlying areas like Lagos Island and environs in order to deflood the whole of the Lagos Island.
The Commissioner emphasized that the government had also moved from collect and dump system in the waste management process to a sustainable circular economy in order to ensure a clean and livable State.
"We are also being very audacious to say to people that, "we can't allow you to destroy the environment and consequently, if you build on a stormwater part of a wetland, the government would remove those structures and let that stormwater have access to discharge" he said.
According to him, we've also taken our destiny in our hands by saying we shall prescribe and ban single-use plastics like styrofoam because of the adverse effects on the environment and the usage of all types of polystyrene that are below 40 microns.
"These were very tough decisions in the light of the fact that we are a growing economy but science has showed us and research has shown us the quantum of plastics that we discharge on a daily basis and we have no choice but to take those hard decisions".
In response, the Senior Management team head of programme delivery, African Cities Research (ACRC) Consontium, University of Manchester , Irene Vance express appreciation for working with the State saying it is very important to tackle the challenges of cities.
She said it is actually very necessary to collaborate with sub national government in order to make a difference in security, transportation, water, sanitation,health and nutrition amongst others.
She said some of the selected include the one in Okerube under Alimosho Local Government as well as the on going lighting project in Ajegunle part of the state under Ajeromi-Ifelodun Local Government Area amongst other places.
 COLLABORATE ON SUSTAINABLE URBAN INTERVENTION){kind=link}
0 Comments