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Dogging The | Nigeria: Toxic Waste – Theatre Of War Moves To Seaports

Onyebuchi Ezigbo

14 July 2010

Lagos – A fresh momentum was ignited in the war to check the dumping of electrical/ electronic waste and other hazardous chemicals in Nigeria last month when the National Environmental Standards Regulatory Agency took the campaign to the country’s seaports in Lagos. The fight has brought to the fore the inert weaknesses of ports administration and the need for a collaborative intervention by all the security agencies.

Before now, the National Environmental Standards Regulatory Agency (NESREA) could only bark from its offices believing that such would be enough to deter perpetrators of the illicit act of dumping toxic waste in the country, while some of the security operatives in the Ports were not even aware of the implications of allowing some categories of goods into the country, especially the used, old and end-of-life electrical/electronic products popularly known as ‘Tokunbo’ goods.

Synergy with the designated agencies conducting business in the port area is greatly needed if the war against dumping of e-waste and toxic substance is to be won. In Nigeria, despite all the efforts to check the dumping of hazardous substances, the issue appears to persist. At least, this year alone had witnessed two major attempts to bring in toxic waste materials, which were thwarted by NESREA and other security operatives.

The matter was further compounded by the advent of used or end-of-life electronic/electrical products otherwise known as ‘Tokunbo’, which has enable the flooding of the country with computer scraps, unserviceable electronic and electrical products considered very toxic to human being and the environment.

One could cast his mind back to the infamous incident that occurred in Koko town in Delta State in the mid-80s when some unpatriotic Nigerians connived with foreigners to bring in containers containing toxic substances and dumped it in the town. The incident was almost carried out without the security agencies detecting it until it blew open. The incident was particularly embarrassing to Nigerian government having coincided with a continental meeting where the country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs was involved in drawing-up measures to secure Africa against dumping of toxic waste.

The Koko toxic dump incident, which was considered an affront by then military government led to the promulgation of Decrees banning the importation of any material that may be considered toxic to the environment. Because of the global concern about the harmful effects of certain substances and materials that are hazardous in nature, the United Nations came up with many conventions, treaties, protocols and agreements to control the illegal shipment of hazardous chemicals and wastes. There is the convention forbidding trading and export of toxic wastes by countries and there is also a protocol agreement binding countries to help provide information on how to track down perpetrators of the illicit trade.

For NESREA, confronting this menace has proved a daunting challenge, especially as its officials are not yet allowed to operate at the ports. So, it sought the cooperation and collaboration of other sister agencies to sensitise them on the issues of e-waste and to develop more effective means of checkmating it. There are however, signs that this collaboration may not come easy as the key agencies at the port appears to be operating as separate empires and such views NESREA’s move as an unnecessary incursion into their domain or so it seemed.

For instance, NESREA’s two-day capacity training/awareness creation workshop brought into the open certain issues that may have been dogging the effective monitoring of e-waste imports through the ports. Most of the agencies operating at the port do not know exactly how to differentiate these offensive materials from normal goods permissible into the country. There is also an apparent lack of coordination and collaboration between these agencies, as all of them seem to carry on their duties without adequate synergy.

At one point when the NESREA team came to the Customs Wing on a scheduled joint inspection tour of the goods perceived to be e-waste products, the team could not get into the container area because the officers in-charge said they were waiting for the importers to come forward before any inspection could go on. In fact it was discovered that normal inspection of the goods does not commence until about 2pm and this happens on daily basis.

This development angered the Director-General of NESREA, Dr. Ngeri Benebo who expressed worry that the practice amounts to waste of valuable man-hour and may lead to congestion at the ports, if Custom official have to wait indefinitely for importers of goods to come before performing their routine duties. “Everywhere looked so dirty, disorganised and maddening to say the least.”

The seaport training workshop on hazardous waste was organised by the agency as part of the International Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement (INECE) Seaport environmental security network inspection month and the point of action was one of the nation’s largest seaport, the Tin Can Island Port. The training was therefore meant to take place in the month of June, which was dedicated for seaport inspection in developing countries of Asia, Africa and South America by the Seaport Environmental Security Network (SESN).

Based on the difficult experience encountered by the relevant agencies saddled with the mandate of maintaining a water-tight security at the ports to avoid these harmful wastes from being smuggled into the country, it was commonly accepted by participants that the fight against illegal waste shipments can only be won if a strong cooperation exists amongst the security/regulatory agencies in the country of origin, transit and destination.

For instance, many of the security and regulatory agencies at Nigeria’s ports have no access to the Automated System for Customs Data (ASYCUDA) used by the Nigerian Customs Services, which is an important procedure for clearing goods. True to its objectives, the training brought a lot of awareness and insight into the operational weaknesses and strengths in Nigerian ports.

Participants resolved that the Harmful Waste Special Criminal Provisions CAP HI LFN of 2004 should be vigorously enforced and all relevant security and regulatory agencies should be actively involved. As a way of encouraging synergy, it was agreed that all relevant security and regulatory bodies operating in the ports are to subscribe to ASYCUDA for ease of information dissemination and retrieval.

The workshop expressed the need to set up a committee comprising all relevant agencies at the seaports to identify the roles of each agency in line with their respective mandates as it relates to the fight against the illegal shipment and dumping of hazardous wastes into the country as well as the illegal traffic in endangered species of flora and fauna.

Apart from canvassing for joint inspection or seaport examinations involving all the relevant agencies, including NESREA, the forum suggested the need for a regulation governing importation of used electrical and electronic equipment with specifications on life span. Regarding the shipment of illegal materials, a further recommendation was made to the effect that information about vessels billed for Nigeria should have the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) numbers when forwarding alerts to the relevant stakeholders for easy tracking of the ship since some of these vessels can have same name.

NESREA as a body with constitutional mandates cutting across wide spectrum in environmental management in the country, said its exclusion from a role at the nation’s ports is hampering its ability to check illegal dumping of hazardous wastes in the country. NESREA’s Benebo was vehement in defending the move to have her officers back to the ports as was the case in the time of the old Federal Environmental Protection Agency (FEPA) in the 1980s.

“NESREA is not just any agency, everyone in the country knows that

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