CITIZENS COMPASS— Lagos State Government on Saturday, cleared the air about the fundamental human rights of residents concerning the resumption of the monthly sanitation exercise.
Recall that the exercise resumed on Saturday which saw many Lagosians participating in it.
Lawal Pedro, SAN,Hon Attorney General & Commissioner for Justice, Lagos State threw more light on the fundamental human rights in a statement.
According to him: The narration in the media on the Court of Appeal Ruling in respect of the case on environmental sanitation in Lagos is not correct. In fact the subsisting Court of Appeal judgment in CA/L/381/2015 delivered on 23rd November 2021, is in favour of the State Government. The Court held that the environmental sanitation exercise in Lagos State was valid and backed by law and that the fundamental right of the Applicant Mr. Ebun Adegboruwa (now an SAN) was not breached. It was Mr. Ebun Adegboruwa who was dissatisfied with the judgment that appealed to the Supreme Court. This was a case I personally prosecuted. The Supreme Court is yet to set aside the judgment of the Court of Appeal and unless there is a subsequent court of Appeal judgement which I am not aware of that restrained the conduct of environmental sanitation exercise in Lagos State, it will not be unlawful to have a controlled movement during the monthly environmental sanitation exercise.
The November 201C, judgment of the Court of Appeal, of the same Lagos Division, in the FAITH OKAFOR vs. LAGOS STATE
GOVERNMENT & ANOR, cannot be regarded as the extant position of the law and can be said to have been superceded by the current 2021 judgment of the same court. Therefore if Lagos State government choose to restrict movement during the period of environmental sanitation exercise it will not be in contravention of a subsisting judgment of the Court of Appeal.
However what the government introduced is a controlled movement of residents during the period of environmental sanitation exercise without affecting the fundamental rights of movement and residents are free to go anywhere they wish through roads and streets that are not blocked. In other words streets where cleaning is ongoing may be blocked to protect people and officials involved in the cleaning exercise from motorists.
