Court Sentences 92 Traders To Community Service

The special court sitting in Alausa, Lagos has sentenced 92 street traders to community service in some parts of Lagos State, southwest Nigeria.

The Lagos State Ministry of the Environment had declared war on street trading in the state, while its enforcement led to the arrest of 92 traders.

The government said it was determined to eradicate street trading as well as attain a clean and sustainable environment in Lagos State. The state criminal law had recommended that people found to have committed minor offences should be made to do community service rather than sending them to jail.

The 92 offenders convicted carried out community service, that included sweeping the streets and cleaning drainage channels, among others in Ogba and Agege recently.

According to state Commissioner for the Environment, Mr. Tunji Bello, the state government is determined to rid the state of all environmental nuisances and abuses.

Before the commencement of the exercise, the Ministry of the Environment held a stakeholders meeting with market men and women leaders, Igbo traders and Hausa communities in Lagos expressing its displeasure about the unhealthy state of Lagos environment and the gradual return of refuse to roads and other environmental abuses.

The environmental nuisance, the government said, were traceable to some shop owners who engaged street traders to hawk, after which they litter the streets as well as degrade them.

These unhygienic habits and gradual return of old habits of indiscriminate dumping of refuse and hawking led to the order to street traders to vacate Lagos roads.

Also, at a news conference recently, Bello expressed displeasure about the continued environmental desecration, indiscriminate dumping of refuse and illegal street trading on most  highways, which is setting the state back.

The commissioner stated that the implementation of the non-custodian sentences was meant to serve as deterrent to offenders as well as bring about environmental sanity in the state.

“The enforcement exercise is continuous and it will be sustained until the major highways and streets are clean and free from hawkers and all forms of street trading,” Bello stated.

He warned those who patronize the hawkers to desist from this act as both the “buyers and sellers” are culpable under this law, adding that “there will be no sacred cows. Whoever is caught would be made to wash public toilets, sweep major highways or work in the dumpsite in the full glare of the press according to the pronouncement of the courts.

“The determination of this administration to attain zero tolerance for all forms of environmental abuse is irrevocable and government will not shy away from taking steps that would rid the state of all forms of environmental nuisance.”

— Kazeem Ugbodaga