The National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency, NESREA is committed to upgrading its three existing Reference Laboratories and standardizing their operations to ensure optimal performance and efficiency.
The Director General of NESREA, Dr Innocent Barikor stated this at a press briefing held in Abuja, aimed at key activities and initiatives of the agency.
He said that NESREA’s ultimate goal as an agency is to achieve a culture of voluntary compliance for the regulated communities.
Dr Barikor said that the Agency had in the last one year, processed and issued about 878 Air Quality, and Waste & Toxic Substance Permits to facilities in the different sectors of the green and brown environment.
The DG reiterated the agency’s firm intention to weed out recalcitrant facilities that indulge in criminal activities affecting human existence, stressing that it is currently prosecuting over 96 facilities sealed off nationwide.
“In the year 2024, the Agency carried out criminal enforcement procedure on a total number of 96 recalcitrant facilities across the different States of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) for various environmental infractions.
NESREA would continue to do that as long as such facilities fail to live up to their obligations towards the environment. That is a promise.” he said.
Dr. Barikor stressed that the year 2025 will see more regulations being created to help regulate the activities of the agency to enviable heights.
These according to him include the decarbonisation of facilities as well as the decommissioning of government moribund facilities.
Dr Barliikor, noted that NESREA is leveraging on its offices spread out in 774 Local Government Areas of the country and the Community Mobilization Officers to reach out to every single Nigerian on environmental issues and early warnings.
“Agency so far, has engaged in several programmes and activities including Environmental Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement, Sensitization, and Awareness Creation/Education, Partnerships and Collaboration, Job Creation and Advisory Roles all aimed at promoting environmental sustainability in the country.” he said.
He emphasized that NESREA has developed thirty-six (36) National Environmental Regulations, as well as various National Environmental Guidelines to achieve effective environmental compliance monitoring and enforcement.
According to the DG, the agency will soon make public the names of new defaulting facilities that broke the seals placed by the NESREA enforcement team and will be penalised accordingly.
On the battery sector, Dr Barikor, said that the agency made landmark progress on unregulated products by developing and gazetting, with the support of some development partners—especially the German government—the National Battery Sector Control Regulations 2024.
“This sector, as I have told you, regulates the activities of used batteries and all environmental issues associated with it. It also performs the duty of ensuring that the recycling of the products contributes hugely to the development of a circular economy. NESREA has, over the years, promoted the implementation of a circular economy in the country through the Extended Producers Responsibility Programme.” he said.
Dr. Barikor noted that implementation has already commenced in the food and beverage sectors as well as the electrical and electronics sectors.
“Batteries, used tyres, and soon the plastic waste sector will be added. This is because an unregulated environment bears the consequences of a lack of regulations. We all know that the era of batteries will soon come to an end as electric vehicles are making their way into the markets.” he said.
He said that the agency, in partnership with the European Union, carried out a series of sensitisation and capacity-building workshops, including for the judiciary, media, and construction sector, as a first step towards sensitisation.
“As an agency, the continuous development of our staff is a priority because we know this cascades into efficiency and productivity. We are trying to achieve this in partnership with our independent partners, such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), Africa Nature Investors, the EU, USAID, the Centre for Environment India, and several others to train our staff in different areas of need.”
According to him, wildlife conservation, with the arrest and confiscation of over 2.5 tonnes of ivory and 3,941.08 kilograms of pangolin scales were authorised as residue used in making a six-foot elephant, signifying Nigeria’s zero tolerance for wildlife trafficking.
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