Lagos State First Lady, Dr. Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu, on Tuesday, emphasised the need for advocacy against indiscriminate waste disposal in indigenous languages to drive home the message of proper waste management in tandem with international best practices.
Mrs. Sanwo-Olu said this while receiving members of the Statewide Waste & Environmental Education Foundation (SWEEP), who had embarked on special advocacy walk against waste, in partnership with various organisations, including the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Lagos State Community Development Advisory Committee (CDAC), Performing Musicians Association of Nigeria (PMAN), National Coalition Against Plastic Pollution, Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) Network and National Youth Council, among others.
The First Lady, who commended the organisers of the advocacy walk for believing in the vision of Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu to ensure proper waste management as specified in the Sustainable Development Goals, noted the importance of breaking the message down into different languages for people to imbibe the essence of a clean environment.
Maintaining that the task to ensure a clean environment requires a collective effort, she tasked members of the entertainment industry to come up with various songs to further create awareness on the need to ensure sustainable waste management. According to her “Cleanliness is next to Godliness. It’s something we can do. Considering that the war against waste will be launched in the three senatorial districts, I am so happy that we have a baseline that we are looking at and we also have scorecards. The issue of cleanliness requires a collective effort. Mr. Governor cannot do it alone; the cabinet cannot do it alone and so it is a joint effort by all of us. But I like the fact that we are going the route of campaigning, creating awareness and advocacy”. “We need to repeat this because if we don’t continuously create this awareness among our people in different languages, the result will be the same. Lagos alone has so many languages and when we want to interpret, we have to interpret in all those languages. I am happy we have PMAN here, the songs will go a long way in communicating to the people the need to keep the State clean”, she said.
The First Lady averred that, apart from the nexus between waste management and health, the issue of a clean environment is equally important in creating investment opportunities in the State and Country.
Also speaking, Permanent Secretary, Office of Environmental Services, Mrs. Belinda Odeneye, urged residents to key into the waste to wealth initiative of the State Government, saying people must understand that waste should not and must not be wasted.
Earlier, the Convener of the Walk and President of SWEEP Foundation, Obuesi Philips said the exercise was aimed at driving community awareness and involvement in sustainable waste prevention.
“The “Walk-Against-Waste” is designed to create massive Statewide awareness, catalyse new grassroots orientation on environmental sanitation, waste prevention and sustainable waste management”, Philips said.
The walk started at Awolowo House, Ikeja, proceeded through Allen Avenue and terminated in front of the Lagos State House of Assembly complex, Alausa, Ikeja.
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