Eight persons have been sentenced to one month in prison by a Magistrate Court sitting in Bolade, Oshodi, for contravening Lagos State’s laws against open defecation and urination.
The culprits, aged between 18 and 45, were brought before Magistrate Oshikoya of the Special Offences (Mobile Court) recently. Upon arraignment, all eight pleaded guilty to the charges levelled against them.
The Lagos State Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, in a statement released shortly after the proceedings, disclosed that the sentencing was intended to serve as a deterrent to other residents who may engage in similar unhygienic practices.
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The conviction follows a related incident on 26 June, where eight individuals were apprehended by the Lagos Environmental Sanitation Corps (LAGESC), also known as KAI, for public urination and disturbing the peace in the Yaba area.
Retired Major Olaniyi Cole, the Corps Marshal of LAGESC, stated that the offenders were prosecuted under Section 168 (1)(d) of the Lagos State Criminal Law of 2015 and Section 5(1) of the state’s Public Health Law of the same year.
He emphasised that the ruling reaffirmed the state government’s commitment to upholding environmental sanitation and curbing public indecency.
“As the premier enforcement Agency in the State with operatives spread across the five divisions in the State, we must not allow public indecency such as open urination and defecation to fester undeterred and this daily monitoring of Lagos environs lead to the arraignment and prosecution of eight offenders in the same vein and we remain unshaken,” Cole said.
In a similar crackdown earlier on 16 June, thirteen individuals were handed a three-month jail term for committing the same offences in Agege and Alimosho, underscoring the government’s zero-tolerance approach to environmental violations.
