An agro-processing company, Supreme Agro Limited in Igbesa, Ado-Odo/Ota local government, over industrial pollution that has destroyed the ecosystem of its host community have been shut down by the Ogun State government.
Nigeriacrime.com gathered that the company was found guilty of industrial pollution, multiple complaints from the Igbesa community, and subsequent failure to heed the warnings from the Ogun State Environmental Task Force.
The State Commissioner for Environment, Ola Oresanya, who ordered the closure of the company, said: “Despite its earlier denial the company was found guilty of industrial pollution, pointing out that it discharges its untreated wastewater into the community which has greatly affected the well-being of the residents of the area.
According to the Commissioner, rather than installing effluent plants that would contain the wastewater and remove the hazardous components and restore it to a safe level before discharging them to surrounding water bodies, the company by-passed the plant and discharged the wastewater directly into the community which not only constitute an eyesore but impacted negatively on the environment.
“This is a very selfish and callous behaviour on the part of the company because the wastewater contains hazardous components, such as heavy metals as well as carcinogenic materials and chemicals which when they get to the environment become injurious to the people leading to unwarranted deaths”.
“The state government will not look away from such behaviour which will impact on the well-being of the residents of their host community.”
He added that the company will remain shut until it restores the environment back to normal and becomes more responsible in its production processes and carries its host community along with its level of remediation.
The Commissioner also praised the Igbesa Traditional Council for notifying the state government of the unethical environmental practices of the company urging other councils, communities, residents and public-spirited individuals to join the state government in enthroning proper environmental governance statewide.
Oresanya also warns companies operating in the state that while the government will continue to provide an enabling environment for them to operate as the industrial capital of the country, it will not tolerate any carelessness in their production processes, adding that they must be straight and do the right things all the times as the state government will always reward companies that operate in accordance to global environmental best practices.