HURRAY! law To criminalise fetching water, Lagos backs down on it .

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HURRAY! law To  criminalise fetching water, Lagos backs down on it .


Akinwunmi Ambode, governor of Lagos state, and the state assembly have backed down on the law to criminalise fetching water from natural sources in Lagos state.


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Earlier, Lagos state house of assembly passed the Lagos Environment Bill with specific provisions to criminalise the abstraction of water from natural sources if conducted without the approval from the authorities.

The UN, and the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) raised concerns, saying “no one should be criminalized or fined for fetching water from lakes, rivers, or any other natural sources”.

Sequel to this, the governor, over the weekend sought the removal of portions of the law criminalising water abstraction from natural sources.

ERA/FoEN has hailed the decision of the Lagos state government to discard what it described as the “anti-people” sections of the new environment law.

In a statement issued by ERA/FoEN on Monday, the organisation said it received the signed law during the weekend and the controversial sections of the law had been removed.

“We are so impressed that the Lagos government allowed the voice of the people to prevail in its decision to finally expunge sections of the new Environment Law that are clearly anti-people and may have been sneaked into the document by proponents of Public Private Partnership (PPP) model for the water sector,” Akinbode Oluwafemi, ERA/FoEN deputy executive director, said.

“Those provocative sections make the Lagos citizen a victim of the failure of successive administrations to invest sustainably in the water sector. By the sheer act of discarding them, the Governor Ambode administration has demonstrating that it is a listening one and we commend this”.

Oluwafemi said local and international civil society and grassroots groups have already proffered a solution to the water situation in Lagos in a document titled Lagos Water Crisis: Alternative Roadmap for Water Sector, which has been made available to relevant government agencies and the office of the governor.

“With the removal of anti-people provisions in the Environment law