The Delta State Commissioner for Environment, Barr. John Nani has strongly indicated that noisy sounds, including loud and uncontrolled musical and verbal sounds emanating from religious houses and other outfits will soon be regarded as an offense in the state.
This is even as the Environmental Management Bill, 2016, a legal white-paper seeking to lend credence to the enforcement of the looming sanction, had successfully scaled through a second reading in the state House of Assembly on Tuesday.
When successfully accented into law, the bill which seeks to repeal the Delta State Environment Protection Bill, 1997 will make provisions for the establishment of an agency to manage the state’s environment, with a special focus on air, noise, water and sturdy waste.
Briefing newsmen in Asaba yesterday, Barr. Nani explained that the move had become necessary, considering the diverse musical and verbal sounds that emanate from different quarters, including churches and mosques, with the result that the daily activities of people are being distorted.
“If you cannot curtail the noise coming from your apartment such that it disturbs someone else flow of event, then it becomes a noise pollution, a sound could be musical to a man, while at the same time, noisy to another person. Letters have been written to all churches and mosques to the effect that they have the right of evangelism, but it should not affect the right of others.
This is not to say they are no longer allowed to engage in mobile evangelism, so long they have the permission to do so. “Moving from one place to the other to do evangelism will not really constitute nuisance because it is just about telling people about the basics of your religion. But, if after preaching, you refuse to go away, then it becomes a trespass abinitio.
So long as that man does not want to hear that sound you are producing (be it preaching or music), it is noise to him and when it affects the right of others, it becomes a pollution”, he explained. He said the Ministry of Environment is “still waiting for the bill to be passed into law because we cannot sanction anybody now when there is no enabling law.
That is the reason why we are making sure that the sent bill is successfully passed into law”. Meanwhile, the Delta State Chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has expressed its readiness to comply with the state government’s directive on noise control, but insisted that such move must be targeted at undermining “the biblical joyful noise in churches” and must be extended to all areas where loud and unwanted noise emanate from.
The State Secretary of CAN, Prof. Oke Akokotu in a telephone chat with our reporter, acknowledged the receipts of letters from the state Ministry of Environment on the development and claimed that it had directed its members to comply with same.
Akokotu stressed that attention should not be directed towards churches and mosques alone as loud sounds from hotels, bars, mobile Disc Jockeys (DJs) and music studios also constitute air pollution
