The Director-General of the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), Prof. Aliyu Jauro, Executive Secretary, E-Waste Producer Responsibility Organisation of Nigeria (EPRON), Mrs Ibukun Faluyi and the chairman, Lagos Council of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Mr. Adeleye Ajayi, have commended ITREALMS E-Waste Dialogue for its deep insight into addressing an issue that is gradually becoming endemic in the country.
They spoke at the 2020 ITREALMS E-Waste Dialogue held at the Welcome Centre Hotels, Lagos with the theme: E-Waste in Nigeria: Challenges and Opportunities.
Jauro, who was represented by the Head of Port Operations in Lagos, Mrs. Ezinwayi Udechukwu, said the event is timely as the volume of e-waste in the country continues to soar.
The DG commended ITREALMS Media for the Dialogue and looks forward to the recommendations of the deliberations to be made available to the agency for continuous engagement with enlarged stakeholders in the country.
EPRON’s Executive Secretary, Mrs. Faluyi, on her part, lauded ITREALMS Media for raising the awareness of members of the public as well as experts to the dangers of electronic waste in the country.
She described the effort as novel, especially coming from a media organisation like ITREALMS Media, and depicts 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.
She canvassed for more synergy between media and industry operators and regulators in carrying out the fundamental function of enlightening the public and social enterprise like EPRON.
Just as she thumbed-up for the management of ITREALMS Media and partners for this stride, when ordinarily, some organisation should have chickened out that the year is about to end, mostly with the effect of COVID-19.
Lagos NUJ council chairman, Mr. Ajayi equally added his voice to the commendation, stating that the future is bright with this stride by ITREALMS to engage the Nigeria’s populace on the positive use and disposal of e-waste.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Editor-in-chief of ITREALMS Media inc, Mr. Remmy Nweke, disclosed that the organisation was concerned with the rise in the electronic devices which are not usually properly disposed off eventually.
This situation, he 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 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 may become the order of the day as Nigeria will soon join countries with fifth generation (5G) deployment.
He said that ITREALMS E-Waste Dialogue theme this year, aligns with the commemoration of the International E-waste Day (IeWD) 2020.
Nweke recalls that ITREALMS e-Waste Dialogue was initially scheduled for October 14 but had to be rescheduled, due to COVID-19 lockdown and #EndSARS protest nationwide.
ITREALMS E-Waste Dialogue was supported by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) and Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN) among others.