Nigeria: Ekiti Jails 574 for Breaching Environmental Laws, Bans Street Smoking

Source from:  This Day 10/10/2015

The Ekiti State government has convicted no fewer than 574 persons at the Mobile Court for Environmental Offences for contravening the State Environmental Health and Sanitation Law since the advent of Governor Ayodele Fayose's government in 2014.

The government has also handed down a stringent warning to those smoking Tobacco in public places to desist, saying the Tobacco Prohibition Law would now being enforced and that there shall be restriction to such practice.

At a ministerial press briefing in Ado Ekiti yesterday, the Commissioner for Environment, Hon Bisi Kolawole, who said the offenders were jailed in accordance with the Ekiti State Environmental Law number 4 of 2004, said a total number of 354 offenders were convicted for flouting the monthly environmental sanitation exercise .

Kolawole, who declared that the offenders were given option of fines, added that 220 persons were jailed for committing offences ranging from "open defecation , dumping of refuse into drainages, and canals, illegal trading on the road sides", among others. Enditem