By Kingsley I. Ilechukwu, Correspondent Lagos
The Director-General of the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), Prof. Aliyu Jauro, and Executive Secretary, E-Waste Producer Responsibility Organisation of Nigeria (EPRON), Mrs Ibukun Faluyi as well as the chairman, Lagos Council of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Adeleye Ajayi, have commended ITREALMS E-Waste Dialogue.
Both Professor Jauro and Mrs. Faluyi spoke at the 2020 ITREALMS E-Waste Dialogue held at the Welcome Center Hotels, Lagos on the theme: E-Waste in Nigeria: Challenges and Opportunities.
For the DG, NESREA who was ably represented by the Head of Port Operations in Lagos, Mrs. Ezinwanyi Udechukwu, the event was timely as the number of e-waste in the country continues to soar.
The DG in a goodwill messages commended ITREALMS Media for the ITREALMS E-Waste Dialogue and looked forward to the outcome of deliberations to be made available to the agency for continuous engagement with enlarged stakeholders in the country.
The Executive Secretary, EPRON, on her part, applauded ITREALMS Media for raising the tempo of discourse on electronic waste in the country with ITREALMS E-Waste Dialogue. She described the effort as novel, especially coming from a media organisation like ITREALMS Media and depicted concern of the media house for a better society in Nigeria in spite of growing number of electrical electronics waste, arising from increase in use of technologies.
She noted that Nigerians depended more on technologies during the recent nationwide lockdown over the ravaging COVID-19.
Faluyi believes that awareness creation can never be enough due to demands and usage of electrical and electronic devices cannot abate. She canvassed for more synergy between EPRON and the media in carrying out their fundamental function of enlightening the public and social enterprises like EPRON.
She thumbed-up for the management of ITREALMS Media and partners for this stride, and not chickenening out as was the case with some organisations as the year is about to end, against the backdrop of the effect of COVID-19 pandemic.
In his goodwill message, the Chairman of theNigeria Union of Journalists(NUJ) Lagos State Council Adeleye Ajayi stated that the future was bright with this stride by ITREALMS to engage the Nigerian populace on the positive use and disposal of e-waste.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Editor-in-chief of ITREALMS Media inc, Remmy Nweke, disclosed that his organization was concerned with the rise in quantity of e-waste in the country which were not properly being disposed of eventually.
This situation, Nweke said, was worsened by the random importation of electrical and electronic devices into the country without consideration for the end-life of such gadgets and attendant implication to the economy and social development.
Nweke also cited for instance the latest Global E-waste Monitor 2020; a collaboration of the Global E-waste Statistics Partnership (GESP) and International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which disclosed that some 53.6 million metric tonnes (Mt) of electronic waste was generated worldwide in 2019 alone.
He noted, this figure was up by 21 per cent within other statistics of the past five years and called for caution among developing countries and Nigeria specifically given the daily rise in number of telecommunications subscriber-base which stood at 285,259,320 connected lines with some 198,961,361 active and 151,063,413 active internet data subscriptions across all the Nigerian Mobile Network Operators by technology, as at July 2020, even as new devices might become the other of the day as Nigeria would soon join countries with fifth generation (5G) deployment.
He said that ITREALMS E-Waste Dialogue aligned with the commemoration of the International E-waste Day (IeWD) 2020.
Nweke recollected that ITREALMS e-Waste Dialogue was initially scheduled for October 14 but due to COVID-19 lockdown and #EndSARS protest nationwide, it had to be rescheduled to Thursday, December 17, 2020 as part of the Nigeria Internet Waste Dialogue.
ITREALMS E-Waste Dialogue was supported by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Association of Licensed Telecom Operations of Nigeria (ALTON) and Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN), among others.
