Dr Kingsley Osagie, Senior Consultant Pulmunologist, National Hospital Abuja, has appealed to the Federal Government to enact laws that will enhance safe practices and protect the environment from air pollution.
Osagie made the call in an interview with Day Break on Wednesday in Abuja as Nigeria joins the world to mark the World Environment Day (WED) on June 5, with the theme: “Air pollution”.
Osagie condemned both environmental and air pollution in the country and blamed it on unwholesome practices such as cigarette smoking and industrial emissions.
He said that fumes emanating from industrial activities were also inimical to healthy living.
He urged the government to sign the Tobacco Control Bill to make the Anti Tobacco Act recently signed into law operational to curb the high rate of smoking.
The consultant also frowned at the increasing number of smokers in the country, noting that in the process of smoking, “at least 7,000 chemicals are released into the air”.
According to him, 70 of the chemicals have been proven to be cancer-related.
The consultant also harped on the improvement of building code in order to make the environment cleaner.
Osagie encouraged management of cement and quary industries or factories to manage their emissions responsibly to avoid pollutions and attendant health hazards.
He cited other forms of air pollution in the country posing health risk on the populace to include dumping of refuse on sewage system, cooking with firewood and kerosene stoves, emission from car exhaust among others.
“In Nigeria, we have a lot of pressure sites. Recently, we heard about the soot in Port Harcourt where people wake up in the morning to find the whole environment black.
“The quarry sites like the one in Ugboko, you can hardly breathe in the air there. Different Quarry sites like Obajana in Kogi, the cars on the roads emit all sorts of fumes due to poor exhaust thereby polluting the air we breath in.
“So this environmental pollution or air pollution increases incidence of diseases like bronchial asthma, chronic obstructive airway disease, lung and skin cancers because the pollutants affect almost all parts of the body.
“We must do advocacy to individuals, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), government, private sector among others to raise awareness to save this environment and to save ourselves. We must act responsible to save ourselves,” he advised.
Osagie said the WED celebrated every year on June 5 globally was the United Nation’s principal vehicle for encouraging awareness and action for the protection of the environment.
According to him, it is established to encourage individuals, private organisations, Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs), governments and CSOs to take responsible actions to protect the environment for the betterment of the populace.
He emphasised that the theme for the year dealing on air pollution was selected to curb the rate of pollution currently ravaging the world.
“We cannot stop breathing but we can do something about the quality of air that we breath,” he said.
“The theme is very important because majority of the people worldwide that is between 92 per cent to 95 per cent don’t breathe in clean air, apart from that, a lot of deaths are also being recorded from air pollution.
“According to the UN, over seven million deaths are related to this poor environmental concern. Most of these deaths occurs in the Asian countries.
“Even the environment in Africa is changing because human activities here is also affecting the environment,”he said.
