A Federal High Court in Ikoyi, Lagos
State, presided over by Justice Mohammed Idris, has declared as unlawful the
restriction of citizens' movement during the monthly Lagos environmental
sanitation exercise.
The policy of the Lagos State Government restricts
citizens to their homes for three hours between 7 a.m and 10 a.m every last
Saturday of the month.
The court held that there is no law in force in Lagos
State by which any citizen could be kept indoors, compulsorily. It also added
that there is no regulation in force currently in Lagos State which authorises
the restriction of movement of citizens, on the last Saturdays of the month,
for the purpose of observing environmental sanitation.
The court found that the Constitution of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria grants freedom of movement to every citizen, and such
freedom cannot be taken away by executive proclamation, in the absence of any
law to that effect.
He therefore voided the power of the Lagos State
Government and its agent to arrest any citizen found moving between 7am and
10am on the last Saturday of every month when the environmental sanitation
exercise is observed.
Justice Idris took arguments in respect of the suit filed
by human rights activist, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, against the Inspector-General of
Police and the Lagos State Government, to challenge the restriction of human
movements on the last Saturday of every month, for the purpose of observing
environmental sanitation.
Adegboruwa led Mr Gbenga Awoseye to argue the case
himself.
In the suit, Adegboruwa contended that there is no law in
force in Lagos State restricting movement of persons, for the purpose of
observing environmental sanitation.
He argued that section 39 of the Environmental Sanitation
Law 2000, of Lagos State, which the respondents claimed to empower the
Commissioner for the Environment, to make regulations, cannot be the basis for
restricting human movement on Saturdays, as no regulation in force has indeed
been made for that purpose.
He challenged the Lagos State Government to produce such
regulation before the court.
He then urged the court to hold that even if there is such
regulation in force, it cannot be enforced on roads that are designated as
federal highways under the Highways Act, such as the 3rd Mainland Bridge where
he was arrested by the police and LASTMA officials.
Lagos State Government was represented in court by Mr
Jonathan Ogunsanya, chief state counsel from the Ministry of Justice.
Mr Ogunsaya, in his response, argued that section 41 of
the 1999 Constitution permits government to make laws that may derogate from
the right to freedom of movement and that the Environmental Sanitation Law of
Lagos State, 2000, is an example of such derogation.
He argued further that the practice of keeping people at
home for three hours only on the last Saturdays of the month is meant to keep
society and environment clean and safe. Therefore, he said that there are
classified exceptions to the restriction, including emergencies and ambulance
services and those on essential services.
After the judgment, Adegboruewa, said: "I am
committed to the struggle to eradicate all forms of arbitrariness and impunity
from our society."
http://www.vanguardngr.com/
Nigeria: Wild Animals On the Streets
We are increasingly treating animals
in the wrong way In what has become an everyday spectacle in our country,
itinerant traditional medicine sellers and owners of small circuses move around
towns and cities dragging along fettered animals that have been declared
endangered and near extinct by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
and by the World conservation bodies.
These animals, which include, but not limited to, monkeys,
baboons and hyenas are cruelly treated by their captors, who compel them to
perform tricks for various paying audiences. Most of these animals are usually
infants whose parents either exist as families in the wild or may have been
killed by poachers, who would then sell the children in the black market. What
is lost to those involved in the dangerous game is that these animals still
possess their natural instincts, even if they are dulled from living outside
their habitat. But the real issue is that the act of parading wild animals on
the streets is both illegal and cruel. It is noteworthy that Nigeria is a
signatory to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of
Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as "CITES". The treaty aims to
protect wildlife from over-exploitation from international trade. It also
provides different levels of protection for a large list of plant and animal
species, working to protect their numbers in the wild. It does this by imposing
a specialised permitting system on the transport and trade of specific listed
species. By those extra hurdles, CITES has created an environment that has had
a significant impact on the rampant over-exploitation of the species it monitors.
Nigeria has a number of animal and plant species that are listed by The World
Conservation Union (IUCN) in the 2004 IUCN "Red List of Threatened
Animals" as 'vulnerable' to extinction.
Regrettably, the government has not been able to
adequately equip forest guards to stop poachers, who operate almost freely
within the nation's protected game reserves in Yankari, Bauchi State; Okomu,
Edo State; Gashaka-Gumti National Park in Adamawa and Taraba States; Cross
River National Park; and Omo Forest Reserve, Ogun State. The poachers are
usually not interested in the orphans that they leave either to die of hunger
or get picked up by people who then sell them to itinerant medicine men or
circus operators.
This thriving trade in wildlife in Nigeria led to the suspension
of the country from CITES in March 2008. Five years earlier in 2003, after two
gorillas that were being illegally trafficked were intercepted in Kano,
international and local conservationists labelled Nigeria a hub in the illegal
trade in endangered wildlife. The two captured female western lowland
nine-year-old gorillas were subsequently sent back to their homeland in
Cameroon that year to the shame of our country.
Incidentally, Nigeria was once said to have the most
diverse population of monkeys and apes in the world, but as its forests have
dwindled many animals have been hunted to extinction. Nigeria's remaining
gorillas are from a particularly endangered sub-species of the lowland gorilla:
the Cross River gorilla that lives in the rugged mountainous jungle on the
Nigeria-Cameroon border. The federal government recently employed some forest
guards but they can do more by mopping up the wildlife on our streets and
sending them to conservation agencies that will later introduce them back into
their natural habitats.
The 1999 Constitution prohibits the abuse of animals under
miscellaneous offences. It states in chapter 50 on 'Cruelty to Animals' that
any person who cruelly beats, kicks, ill-treats, over-rides, over-drives,
over-loads, tortures, infuriates, or terrifies any animal, or causes or
procures, or, being the owner, permits any animal to be so used "is guilty
of an offence of cruelty and is liable to imprisonment for six months or to a
fine of fifty naira, or to both such imprisonment and fine." The
authorities must begin to enforce the law.
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