16th August, 2010
The landlady of the house located at 37, Okota Road, Isolo, Lagos, Alhaja Olorunosebi, has called on the Lagos State Government and the state’s Ministry of the Environment, to save her and her family from impending outbreak of epidemic as a result of a sewage pipe which one of her neighbours laid across her building which, according to her, is posing dangerous health threat.
Olorunosebi told Lagos Bulletin that although she had earlier permitted the neighbour identified as Mrs. Suwebatu, now late, of 40, Oludegun Street, off Okota Road, Isolo, to lay the pipe across her building when she told her that it was meant for water, to her surprise, however, the pipe was being used to discharge human waste into a septic tank.
She added that after the death of the neighbour, she appealed to her children to remove the pipe but they ignored all her pleadings.
According to her, the Ministry of the Environment, Alausa, Ikeja, had also issued removal notice on three occasions to that effect, but all to no avail.
The landlady further disclosed that her neighbour’s action had made Oshodi/Isolo Local Council Development Area to drag her tenants before an Ilasamaja Grade A Customary Court, for environment-related offences occasioned by the sewage pipe laid across her building.
She therefore called on the Lagos State Government and the Ministry of the Environment to assist her on the removal of the pipe.
“I want to appeal to Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola and the Ministry of the Environment to instruct them to remove the pipe from my compound, because of the danger it posed to the members of my family.
“I do not have any power to remove the pipe, the court had ordered them to remove it from my house but they ignored the order and that is why I am calling on the state government and other agencies concerned, to save me from the impending health havoc that may occur as a result of the act,†Olorunosebi pleaded.
A visit to the house revealed that the sewage pipe that served occupants of the late Suwebatu’s house was laid across Olorunosebi’s compound.
It was also observed that stench was oozing out of the pipe, a situation considered to be dangerous to human health and which called for urgent action.
Efforts made by this medium to speak with the dependants of the late Suwebatu proved abortive as none of them was ready to speak to the press on the development.
—Ayodeji Dedeigbo