It is noise pollution everywhere in Nigeria. Some persons think that it is normal to make noise or that they are immune to noise. As a result of this, many people are suffering from hearing problems, especially children.
According to Momoh Suleiman of Daily Trust, rowdy market scenes, the whining clatter of grinding machines, the second-hand clothes seller screaming his geniuses, the siren of important government functionaries, indiscriminate use of mobile phones and the ubiquitous okada men, all contribute to environmental noise.
A hypothesis by Evelyn, M. Ityavyar, Department of Geography; and Tyav, Terungwa Thomas, Department of Sociology, University of Abuja, said: “Research has also shown that as the population of a country grows/increases with attendant pressure on the environment especially in the wake of improved technologies, environmental abuse and pollution are nevertheless heightened with corresponding effects on lives of people and other living organisms…”
They added: “It has been observed further that man through industrial, agricultural and the ever increasing urbanisation process, security and terrorist activities tend to directly and/or indirectly pollute the environment. In Nigeria for instance, environmental issues did not gain official prominence until the 1988 Koko toxic waste dumping saga which also brought to the fore the exigent need to establish the Federal Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Ministry of Environment and other relevant agencies, ostensibly to tackle environmentally related issues, in the country.
These include issues such as environmental pollution, sanitation, depletion of ozone layer, desertification, flooding, erosion, poverty, bush burning, deforestation, soil conservation etc. All these mentioned above are a pointer to the fact that issues of environment and in fact environmental pollution, have taken a centre stage in the nation’s development process.
The stress of that is that 60 per cent of deaf children in the country are out of school, said a baseline study. The World Health Organisation has bemoaned that the number of people affected with the hearing impairment has grown from 42 million to 360 million in over two decades, out of which, children who are said to be suffering from the problem, are given at 32 million, and they are younger than 15 years old.
Seven million five hundred are under the age of five. Indices have shown that about 14 per cent of pupils have some kind of hearing loss. In the views of a peadiatrician with an interest in audiology, Prof. Bolajoko Olusanya, available studies have suggested that up to 2.7 per cent or 162,000 of the six million infants born annually might have hearing impairment.
Of the 120 million babies born yearly in the developing world, it is said that 718,000 are likely to have permanent or sensor neural hearing impairment at an estimated incidence of six per 1,000 live births compared to 2-4 per 1,000 for the developed world.
Against this backdrop, some children in schools, whose parents can afford hearing aids, said to cost as much as N600, 000, need accessories such as batteries and driers, while others cannot afford. Against this scenario, many children are suffering from what experts have described as growing effects of noise, due to poverty.
Most hearing loss at a ripe age was got from childhood, said connoisseurs. According to newspaper report, a majority of pupils at the Favour Auditory Oral School, Ejigbo, Lagos, a special school for the deaf and dumb, were not born deaf. It was noted that the Project Director of the school, Mr. Johnson Odigiri, averred that obtainable medical reports had shown that 80 per cent of the pupils were born without hearing mutilation.
So, what was the problem? According to the source, the children attained the “soft” disability after they received treatment in the hospital following certain infections. Prof Olusanya had said that there is the need to carry out hearing screening before discharging a newborn from the hospital or health centre. A report on February 17, 2015 stressed as follows: Generation exposed to constant noise could be losing the ability to hear, noise pollution could be blocking out natural sounds that boost health, hearing is ‘universal learning sense’ active even when we’re sleeping.
In Lagos, a recent research has shown that as many as 13.9 per cent of school pupils suffer from hearing loss. Yet, in just two per cent of the cases did parents or teachers observe signs of hearing loss.
“This is the finding of a study examining the incidence of hearing impairment in Nigerian schoolchildren. The prevalence of noise pollution is a foremost cause of health concern in Nigeria. The Nigerian Hearing and Speech Association has linked the growing hearing difficulties being experienced by Nigerians to noise pollution.”
A columnist with The Punch, Bayo Olupohunda, has decried the danger of noise pollution in a letter he openly sent to Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, saying, “My concern has become necessary due to the danger noise pollution poses to residents. Personally, as a resident living in Lagos, it has become a nightmare. Our health is suffering due to the bedlam our city has become…”
He further stated: “Noise pollution has also impacted on the global perspective of Lagos. In recent years, this city has consistently been rated poorly by the Economic Intelligent Unit in its global livable cities rankings… Everywhere one turns in this city, there is no respite from noise pollution. There is bedlam everywhere. Noise pollution in Lagos has assumed a frightening level…
“Lagos cannot continue like this. The law has to be enforced for some sanity and decency to return. Noise may be the root cause of around three deaths in every hundred traditionally blamed on heart disease according to a study that suggests many thousands of people may be dying because of lack of peace and quiet.
“More people than ever are now complaining about unwanted noise pollution – from rowdy neighbours, street vendors and loud traffic to late-night parties, churches, pubs and clubs. A groundbreaking research from the WHO has provided estimates of the impact of noise revealing a striking contribution of noise to premature deaths…”
Most times, some Nigerians have a thought that their source of electricity should not provide electricity indefinitely. This rather obscure thought was necessitated by the fact that many of the countrymen and women do not know how to live together with their neighbours. The noise they generate from their record players and televisions is enough to make one go mad.
The irony is that when one tells some of the people in this line of behaviour to check their ways, they remind the person of how the complainant does not belong to this country and that the person should go to Europe or America and live.
Scholars have however defined pollution as a derivation of the word pollute, which means, to make something dirty or no longer pure, especially by adding harmful or unpleasant substances to it. In another development; the committee on pollution of the United States National Research Council (1965) defined pollution as an undesirable change in physical, chemical or biological characteristics of our air, land and water that may or will harmfully affect human life or that of other desirable species, our industrial processes, living conditions cultural assets that may or will waste or deteriorate our raw material resources. It is suggested that a prompt legislative framework should be put in place to make laws that would tackle headlong issues of noise pollution in Nigeria.
According to them, the World Health Organisation recommends an industrial noise limit of 75 Decibels so that any sound level above 75 dB is already a pollutant. Nevertheless, in dance halls, recording centres, airports, rail terminals and others, noise is normally heard above 115 dB sound level that must be avoided. This has to be avoided because, at this level, short or long term effects alike that can cause damage to the tympanic membrane – the ear drum- is likely to occur. This may either be injurious to the ear or lead to lots of hearing ability – which may result to deafness to the affected members of the society.
Onwumere, a poet/writer, is based in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. Tel: +2348057778358
It is noise pollution everywhere in Nigeria. Some persons think that it is normal to make noise or that they are immune to noise. As a result of this, many people are suffering from hearing problems, especially children.
According to Momoh Suleiman of Daily Trust, rowdy market scenes, the whining clatter of grinding machines, the second-hand clothes seller screaming his geniuses, the siren of important government functionaries, indiscriminate use of mobile phones and the ubiquitous okada men, all contribute to environmental noise.
A hypothesis by Evelyn, M. Ityavyar, Department of Geography; and Tyav, Terungwa Thomas, Department of Sociology, University of Abuja, said: “Research has also shown that as the population of a country grows/increases with attendant pressure on the environment especially in the wake of improved technologies, environmental abuse and pollution are nevertheless heightened with corresponding effects on lives of people and other living organisms…”
They added: “It has been observed further that man through industrial, agricultural and the ever increasing urbanisation process, security and terrorist activities tend to directly and/or indirectly pollute the environment. In Nigeria for instance, environmental issues did not gain official prominence until the 1988 Koko toxic waste dumping saga which also brought to the fore the exigent need to establish the Federal Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Ministry of Environment and other relevant agencies, ostensibly to tackle environmentally related issues, in the country.
These include issues such as environmental pollution, sanitation, depletion of ozone layer, desertification, flooding, erosion, poverty, bush burning, deforestation, soil conservation etc. All these mentioned above are a pointer to the fact that issues of environment and in fact environmental pollution, have taken a centre stage in the nation’s development process.
The stress of that is that 60 per cent of deaf children in the country are out of school, said a baseline study. The World Health Organisation has bemoaned that the number of people affected with the hearing impairment has grown from 42 million to 360 million in over two decades, out of which, children who are said to be suffering from the problem, are given at 32 million, and they are younger than 15 years old.
Seven million five hundred are under the age of five. Indices have shown that about 14 per cent of pupils have some kind of hearing loss. In the views of a peadiatrician with an interest in audiology, Prof. Bolajoko Olusanya, available studies have suggested that up to 2.7 per cent or 162,000 of the six million infants born annually might have hearing impairment.
Of the 120 million babies born yearly in the developing world, it is said that 718,000 are likely to have permanent or sensor neural hearing impairment at an estimated incidence of six per 1,000 live births compared to 2-4 per 1,000 for the developed world.
Against this backdrop, some children in schools, whose parents can afford hearing aids, said to cost as much as N600, 000, need accessories such as batteries and driers, while others cannot afford. Against this scenario, many children are suffering from what experts have described as growing effects of noise, due to poverty.
Most hearing loss at a ripe age was got from childhood, said connoisseurs. According to newspaper report, a majority of pupils at the Favour Auditory Oral School, Ejigbo, Lagos, a special school for the deaf and dumb, were not born deaf. It was noted that the Project Director of the school, Mr. Johnson Odigiri, averred that obtainable medical reports had shown that 80 per cent of the pupils were born without hearing mutilation.
So, what was the problem? According to the source, the children attained the “soft” disability after they received treatment in the hospital following certain infections. Prof Olusanya had said that there is the need to carry out hearing screening before discharging a newborn from the hospital or health centre. A report on February 17, 2015 stressed as follows: Generation exposed to constant noise could be losing the ability to hear, noise pollution could be blocking out natural sounds that boost health, hearing is ‘universal learning sense’ active even when we’re sleeping.
In Lagos, a recent research has shown that as many as 13.9 per cent of school pupils suffer from hearing loss. Yet, in just two per cent of the cases did parents or teachers observe signs of hearing loss.
“This is the finding of a study examining the incidence of hearing impairment in Nigerian schoolchildren. The prevalence of noise pollution is a foremost cause of health concern in Nigeria. The Nigerian Hearing and Speech Association has linked the growing hearing difficulties being experienced by Nigerians to noise pollution.”
A columnist with The Punch, Bayo Olupohunda, has decried the danger of noise pollution in a letter he openly sent to Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, saying, “My concern has become necessary due to the danger noise pollution poses to residents. Personally, as a resident living in Lagos, it has become a nightmare. Our health is suffering due to the bedlam our city has become…”
He further stated: “Noise pollution has also impacted on the global perspective of Lagos. In recent years, this city has consistently been rated poorly by the Economic Intelligent Unit in its global livable cities rankings… Everywhere one turns in this city, there is no respite from noise pollution. There is bedlam everywhere. Noise pollution in Lagos has assumed a frightening level…
“Lagos cannot continue like this. The law has to be enforced for some sanity and decency to return. Noise may be the root cause of around three deaths in every hundred traditionally blamed on heart disease according to a study that suggests many thousands of people may be dying because of lack of peace and quiet.
“More people than ever are now complaining about unwanted noise pollution – from rowdy neighbours, street vendors and loud traffic to late-night parties, churches, pubs and clubs. A groundbreaking research from the WHO has provided estimates of the impact of noise revealing a striking contribution of noise to premature deaths…”
Most times, some Nigerians have a thought that their source of electricity should not provide electricity indefinitely. This rather obscure thought was necessitated by the fact that many of the countrymen and women do not know how to live together with their neighbours. The noise they generate from their record players and televisions is enough to make one go mad.
The irony is that when one tells some of the people in this line of behaviour to check their ways, they remind the person of how the complainant does not belong to this country and that the person should go to Europe or America and live.
Scholars have however defined pollution as a derivation of the word pollute, which means, to make something dirty or no longer pure, especially by adding harmful or unpleasant substances to it. In another development; the committee on pollution of the United States National Research Council (1965) defined pollution as an undesirable change in physical, chemical or biological characteristics of our air, land and water that may or will harmfully affect human life or that of other desirable species, our industrial processes, living conditions cultural assets that may or will waste or deteriorate our raw material resources. It is suggested that a prompt legislative framework should be put in place to make laws that would tackle headlong issues of noise pollution in Nigeria.
According to them, the World Health Organisation recommends an industrial noise limit of 75 Decibels so that any sound level above 75 dB is already a pollutant. Nevertheless, in dance halls, recording centres, airports, rail terminals and others, noise is normally heard above 115 dB sound level that must be avoided. This has to be avoided because, at this level, short or long term effects alike that can cause damage to the tympanic membrane – the ear drum- is likely to occur. This may either be injurious to the ear or lead to lots of hearing ability – which may result to deafness to the affected members of the society.
Onwumere, a poet/writer, is based in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. Tel: +2348057778358
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