POVERTY AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION IN WATERFRONT COMMUNITIES IN LAGOS AND PORT HARCOURT CITIES: INTERROGATING THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT IN ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION, 1958 -2015

Abstract

This study argues that several waterfront communities in Lagos and Port Harcourt cities are polluted. It shows that poverty is one of the causes of pollution of waterfront settlements, most of which are slums. The inhabitants of most of the waterfront communities are low-income earners, who are artisanal fishermen, farmers, and artisans. Due to ignorance, the urban-poor inhabitants degrade the waterways in their daily toil for food and resources. The paper shows that industrial waste discharge in the waterways along the fringes of the coast pollutes the waterfront areas and explains that lack of support from the government to abate pollution in the areas increases the incidence of pollution. The absence of toilet and sewage facilities around the waterfront communities increases the rate of open defecation and waste dumping. This in turn affects the users of the waterways and the people living in the highbrow waterfront communities. The study uses Lagos and Port Harcourt to demonstrate how poverty and ineffective waste management can increase the rate of pollution in the waterfront areas and how their inhabitants are affected by pollution. The study is significant in view of the importance of the waterfront communities as potential areas for tourism, living space, and natural resources. Functionalist and Marxist theories will be employed in the study to show the relationship between poverty and environmental degradation in the context of the study areas. The study recommends several ways the government and inhabitants can reduce the menace. This study adopts source criticism as a historical method, to evaluate information sources. This method is based on the historian’s belief that since every source has a part of its own, historians must first examine the history of their sources, a process known as source criticism, before turning to source interpretation.