If I throw a pure water sachet on the road in Nigeria, somebody can shout, “Oga! Pick that thing!" And honestly, they should.
We complain about dirty streets, blocked drainage, flooding and plastic everywhere, but sometimes we behave like the environment is somebody else's property.
But then I started thinking about something else.... What happens when the person doing the polluting is not one person?... What happens when it is a company?
A company with trucks, factories, pipelines, production facilities, warehouses and millions of naira moving through its accounts?
Should the same environmental rules apply?... I think they should..
Actually, in some situations, I think the responsibility should be even greater because the potential damage is much bigger.
Nigeria already has environmental regulations and an agency, NESREA, responsible for monitoring and enforcing environmental standards... Its enforcement responsibilities include industrial pollution, hazardous waste, industrial effluents and other environmental violations.
So this is not really a situation where Nigeria has no rules so the bigger question is... Are the rules being enforced consistently?... Because there is a big difference between throwing one bottle on the street and a large operation releasing waste that affects an entire community.
One person might block a small part of a drainage system... A badly managed industrial operation can affect water, farmland, businesses, homes and people's livelihoods.
We have seen how serious environmental damage can become in Nigeria.
The UNEP assessment of Ogoniland documented extensive pollution associated with decades of oil operations, examining more than 200 locations and reviewing thousands of medical records. The assessment found serious contamination affecting land, water and ecosystems.... When an ordinary Nigerian does something wrong, the consequences can sometimes feel immediate but when a powerful organisation is involved, the process can become complicated.
There are investigations.
There are lawyers.
There are regulators.
There are reports.
There are negotiations.
There are questions about who is actually responsible and sometimes, years can pass while the community is still living with the consequences.... But I also don't think the answer is simply, “Punish every company.”.. Companies deserve due process too.
A company should not automatically be declared guilty because people are angry or because an environmental incident happened around its operations.
There should be proper investigation, evidence and accountability and we also have to recognise that not every environmental problem involving a company is necessarily caused by the company itself. Nigeria's environmental challenges can involve illegal dumping, poor waste management, vandalism, illegal refining, poor infrastructure and individual behaviour too.
So the real issue for me is responsibility... If you cause the damage, you should be held responsible.. If you are a company, being bigger should not mean being above the law and if you are an individual, being small should not mean the law ignores you either.
I actually think this should apply to all of us.
The person throwing a plastic bottle from a moving car.
The business dumping waste into a drainage channel.
The factory improperly disposing of hazardous waste.
The organisation polluting a river.
The government agency failing to enforce environmental standards.
Everybody has a role in this.
Because at the end of the day, the environment doesn't know whether the person who polluted it is poor, rich, a businessman, a corporation or an ordinary Nigerian.
The river doesn't care about your company logo.
The drainage doesn't care about your social status.
Pollution doesn't check your bank account before causing damage.
So maybe the question isn't:
“Is government more lenient with companies?”
Maybe the better question is:
“Are we applying the same principle of accountability to everyone?”
Because environmental protection shouldn't depend on how powerful the person responsible is.
If an individual can be held accountable for littering, a company should also be accountable when its activities cause environmental harm.
Not because companies should be treated worse but because nobody should be treated as being above responsibility and honestly, Nigeria already has enough problems.
We shouldn't add “whoever has enough money gets to pollute” to the list.
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