A Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Ibadan, Godson Ana, has stressed the need for concerted positive actions to save the environment from the current distress.
Ana made the call in Ibadan on Thursday while delivering his inaugural lecture titled ‘Nature’s Blanket and God’s Heritage Distress: Who’s the Deliverer?’.
Ana, the first indigenous professor of Environmental Health Sciences, UI associated various health issues such as cancer, respiratory disease and infections to the amount of pollution people are exposed to in the air, water, soil and food.
He noted that children and pregnant women were more vulnerable to adverse health effects of air pollution with outcome such as premature birth, birth defects among others.
The Don, however, called on government at all levels to prioritize environmental issues and provide adequate funding for monitoring and surveillance.
“In the immediate government needs to provide resources for all sectors of the environment.
“Sincerely speaking most of the environmental sectors are under funded such as waste management, provision of potable water supply and so on.
“Several years back we used to have pipe borne water, now every household would have to consider digging a well or sinking a borehole.
“But it is the responsibility of the government to provide potable water supply for the populace,” he said.
Ana stated that combating COVID-19 pandemic would have been much easier if issues related to environmental monitoring had been put in place before the outbreak.
“We must not wait till we have issues like this; now we are having covid, but if there had been routine monitoring and surveillance we will be able to nip it immediately.
“And, be able to identify what are those causative organisms that are in air, in water, in soil and in food before they escalate.
“There are a whole lot of things that need to be done properly. Government needs to rise to its responsibility and fund the environmental sector very well,” he said.
While lamenting on the negative roles of humans in environmental issues, Ana decried the attitude toward the environment as sickening.
He noted that more than 60 per cent of Nigerians had very poor attitude toward the environment, which need to change for sustainable development to be actualised.
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“I have recommended a reorientation programme for attitudinal change, starting from the schools and homes.
“Parents must ensure that they inculcate environmental activities in their wards right from home.
“Training the children is essential because our attitude and behaviour toward the environment is wrong and that is why we are experiencing the decadence and rot in the environment,” Ana said.
In an interview, Mr Elijah Udofia, Zonal Director, National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency, South West zone (NESREA), said “the agency believes so much in sustainability.”
He advocated a paradigm shift based on awareness right from early educational level on the need to protect the environment.
“The agency is now forcing industries that have been polluting in the past toward a circular economy; of a green earth and having zero waste.
“Today’s waste can become a raw material for another material for a secondary production,” Udofia said.
Also, Isah Adamu, a Senior Technical Assistant to the Registrar, Environmental Health Officers Registration Council of Nigeria, Abuja corroborated with the don that the environment was in distress.
“The solutions he has provided if implemented would go a long way in alleviating the silent suffering Nigerians are being exposed to as a result of environmental contamination and pollution.
“As a regulatory body we are conscious of the solutions provided and are working on them as well advising appropriate government authorities, as to how best to utilise such recommendations to bring out the best from our environment,” Adamu said. (NAN)