idea behind his administration's initiative, "Horn Free Day" coming up
on October 15, 2014, describing it as a step towards sensitizing
residents to the harmful effects of noise pollution.
Speaking at the State's first "Lagos Drivers' Appreciation Day" held
at the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry House, Alausa, Ikeja,
Governor Fashola said that the Horn Free Day was an initiative of his
administration to persuade citizens that there is a better way to live
than indulging in noise pollution which has been found to be harmful
to their health.
Re-enforcing the remarks of the Guest Lecturer who put the harmful
noise level at 70 decibels and above, the Governor said that there was
need to bring this figure down significantly because according to the
global standard for measuring noise, "90 decibels is rather too high
and harmful to human health".
"It is for our own good, it is for our own health, it is for our own
life. It is not because Governor Fashola said so. It is not because
Lagos State Government said so. It is simply because it is good for
us. Doctors have told us it is for our own ultimate good", the
Governor said.
According to him, "What we see in a way that we now choose to live is
that because we live in a very noisy environment, which we can really
diminish, we tend to be very noisy ourselves. We speak at the top of
our voices, we play music at very high decibels and we do very many
things at very high levels".
The Governor pointed out that the campaign against noise pollution was
a response to the petitions and complaints of "citizens and tax payers
who, on daily basis, write and petition us that somebody is preventing
them from sleep either from the noise they are making or from other
uncharitable activities they are carrying on without regard for the
well being of their neighbours."
He further recalled, "Occasionally, when you hear a siren you know
something has gone wrong in that system; you know that either an
ambulance is on its way to an emergency or firemen are on their way to
a fire or policemen are tracking and chasing criminals; and I said
then that why should we be different, are we not Nigerians?"
Saying that such a change should start from Lagos, Governor Fashola
expressed joy that the Ministry of Transportation and all its
affiliated agencies, the Drivers' Institutes, the Transport and the
Law Enforcement Institutes, have all taken the Horn Free Day
challenge up to the level of implementation.
He declared, "We are gathered here today to sensitize ourselves in
preparation for the day we have chosen as a Horn Free Day; the
No-Noise day or whatever you chose to call it, but let us just bring
down the noise in our society. On that day we will not be gathering
like this. Each one of us and all of us will be consciously doing
something to start this very exciting journey in order to reduce noise
in our society".
The Governor charged the audience, "I want you to remember as we leave
here today that starting from the 15th of October, whether we reduce
noise or not starts from you and I. If you and I make the commitment
to do something positive in order to reduce noise, clearly you and I
will benefit".
--Channels
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