INSTITUTIONAL AND COMPLIANCE FRAMEWORKS AND THE CHALLENGES OF ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS AND MANAGEMENT IN LAGOS STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Most urban cities have established laws and frameworks for addressing environmental problems. However, few have actually succeeded in alleviating such problems. Lagos State is the most populous city in Nigeria and has been grappling with competing demands for development and maintenance of sustainable environment. While scholars have examined the domestication of federal environmental laws, there is scanty research on environmental frameworks at the State and local government levels. Therefore, specific environmental challenges in Lagos State, policies and legislations adopted for their management, the structures for creating awareness and ensuring compliance, and the inhibitors of the process were investigated.

McNair and Leibfried’s Benchmarking Theory served as framework, while a case study research design was utilised. Key informant interviews were conducted with 25 purposively selected stakeholder groups, including the Federal Ministry of Environment (2), National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (2), Lagos State Ministry of the Environment (2), Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA, 2), Lagos State Parks and Gardens (LASPARK, 2), Lagos State Safety Commission (LSSC, 2) and Lagos State Signage and Advertisement Agency (LASAA, 2). Others included the Lagos State Waste Management Agency (LAWMA-2), Lagos State Waste Water Management Office (LSWMO, 2), Environmental Rights Action (1) and Environmental Health Officers in Alimosho (2), Lagos Mainland (2), and Kosofe (2), local government areas. Data were content analysed.

The environmental challenges included rapid urbanisation and demographic pressures, illegal settlement, defacement of public spaces, poor public attitude towards environmental management, heat waves and air pollution. In response, the State government, over time, adopted hybridised environmental best practices which culminated in the 2017 Harmonised Environmental Law of Lagos State. Though segments of the law were being enforced by different agencies including LAWMA, LASPARK, LASAA, LASEPA and LSWMO prior to enactment of the 2017 law, the task of creating environmental awareness remained unassigned to any of the State’s environmental agencies even after it was enacted. Multiple agencies were tasked with creating awareness but each mostly focused on enforcement. Thus, awareness creation was not coordinated to ensure mass enlightenment. Compliance with environmental legislations was hampered largely by judicial bottlenecks as well as politics and culture-sensitive enforcement. Role conflicts among regulatory agencies, lack of environmental bye-laws at the local government level, population density, inadequate manpower among others constituted the main inhibitors of the frameworks for environmental awareness and management in the state.

Lagos State has potentially appropriate institutional frameworks for environmental management. Therefore, environmental awareness needs to be mainstreamed and the incessant role conflicts among regulatory agencies addressed.