By Nneka Nwogwugwu
The Lagos State Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tunji Bello, has unveiled an app that will help monitor and respond to environmental issues in the State.
The app is named CitiMonitor Application and Enterprise Environmental Monitoring Infrastructure Information system (EEMIIS).
Bello over the weekend stated that it would give the government a wider reach in monitoring and responding to environmental issues reported by residents.
He said as quoted by Pm News, “This app will maximise the reach of the government using the large population of Lagos.
“It will get to the nooks and crannies and help us to better report the state of the environment from blockage of our canals to indiscriminate waste dumping and every other infraction.”
Bello, represented by the Permanent Secretary, Office of Environmental Services, Mrs Belinda Odeneye also noted that the application, which the state government had been test- running for some time was now available for download on Google Play Store and Apple IOS Store.
He added that some selected officers of the Ministry are already using the application including 25 officers from the State-of-the Environment programme while other officers on the programme are expected to log on after the Launching.
He said that residents could still make use of WhatsApp, text messages and other means to also report environmental infractions.
He informed that the app will also help to reveal more complaints and reports of infractions on daily basis on flooding, damaged roads, dilapidated building, illegal petrol stations, security violations, unlawful human activities, vehicle traffic situations, abandoned vehicles and other environmentally related issues that are underreported or not reported at all in the state.
The software developer, Mr Ayodeji Faniran said that one of the unique features of the app is that it is configured to capture real-time images within the Lagos geographical locations only.
“You cannot upload pictures from your gallery, you cannot submit pictures from other parts of the country or the world, only pictures from Lagos State can be submitted.
”Such that, once you click the picture anywhere in Lagos State, it’s going to have the time stamp, the location/address.
”You can pick the local government and the markets as all local governments and markets in Lagos State have been configured,” Faniran said.
He added that there will be provision to introduce other languages in the app especially Yoruba language.
