Mindful of the hampering effects of insecurity on the development of any society, governments – the world over and at all levels – make frenetic efforts to safeguard the lives and property of the people. In truth, safety and security engender the prosperity of any country, as individuals always tend to seek protection from risk or injury and are free from danger or threat.
A safe and healthy workplace not only protects workers from injury and illness but can also lower illness costs, reduce absenteeism and turnover, thereby increasing productivity and raising employees’ morale. Sadly, in our contemporary era, security is challenged in all aspects of our daily lives and trust in the institutions that should keep us safe is low.
Challenged by these realities, the Lagos State Government has taken proactive measures to ensure the safety of its residents through the establishment of the Lagos State Safety Commission. The commission, borne out of the dream to build a society that values life through a change in unsafe behaviour and attitude that would increase life expectancy/national productivity and ultimately improve quality of life, reduce poverty, accidents/injury, illnesses and diseases, enhance environment conducive to investment and business continuity, was the first ever to be established in Nigeria.
The Lagos State Safety Commission was established in 2011 and has a legal instrument to back its existence. The commission is responsible for the coordination of all government matters relating to the safety of the lives and property of people and residents of Lagos State. It is vested with the powers to formulate policies, provides advisory and be the regulatory body on safety-related issues. As an agency of government, its operations cut across all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government.
Explaining the commission’s duties, its Director-General, Lanre Mojola said the commission’s vision is to “proactively make safety a lifestyle in Lagos State, a world-class city, and maintain the leading change” by “developing policies and strategies that will build a sustainable safety culture through a regulated and coordinated safety system.”
In the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic, the commission enforced the non-pharmaceutical interventions, even shutting some event centres and other public places for flouting the regulations. It also produced safety guidelines during the lockdown. This is done, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Ministry of Education and other related agencies.
The commission is also involved in the School Safety Initiative, covering about 20,000 schools (private and public). “Under this initiative, we have trained many pupils on safety and we continue to engage with the teachers on how to develop a safety culture for the pupils. We’ve trained over 1,000 School Safety Marshals, and we continue to carry out inspections and risk assessments in these schools to defy the hazards before they crystallise,” Mojola stated.
According to him, the commission’s operations cut across all the MDAs of government as encapsulated in the six pillars of the state’s strategic development agenda of the Babajide Sanwo-Olu-led administration, namely Traffic Management and Transportation, Health and Environment, Education and Technology (THEMES) and so “it is expedient we collaborate with every ministry on safer ways of carrying out their operations because our goal is to ensure the safety of all.”
He said: “Our operations cut across all MDAs because safety is a subset of every human activity. Across the THEMES agenda of Mr Governor, from traffic management to transportation, all the way to security, governance and finance, the activities of the safety commission has been felt through some of the initiatives that we aligned ourselves with, in terms of making Lagos a safer place. We believe that a safer Lagos is one of the subsets that will birth the Greater Lagos of our desires.
“We have published specific safety guidelines for transport operators and hold regular sensitisations with them to ensure that they understand what they’re reading. We’ve also carried out several campaign sessions, particularly with regard to the use of the waterways. The waterway is an ecosystem of its own with several players-fishermen, loggers, sand miners and boat operators.
“We bring everybody together to understand the dynamics and challenges they face, such that the sand miners will not cause a nuisance to the boat operators, who will also not spill diesel to disrupt the other supply chain systems within the ecosystem. We’ve also worked with the Lagos State Waterways Authority in developing the first of its-kind Waterways Safety Code, which is undergoing final review and will be published at the next commemoration of the World Day for Safety. We continue to work closely with the Vehicle Inspection Service (VIS) on inspecting trucks at loading sites.”
To further drive home this message of safety, the commission is developing the Lagos Safety Alert Management System (LASAMS), in collaboration with the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) and the Ministry of Science and Technology, which will serve as an early warning system to prevent and manage the disaster.
Mojola added: “The Lagos Safety Alert Management System is still being developed, but its concept is to have an early management or warning system that can detect and send information to people in a timely manner. If, for instance, there is a gas leakage at Alausa, everyone in that axis gets text messages highlighting the need to respond or not. In the case of attacks in certain areas, or of civil unrest, the LASAMS will send an alert to targeted and specific people that are around for an effective response. This is one of the new technologies that we’re working on as regards safety and we are hoping to perfect it as soon as possible.”
While LASAMS is still a work in progress, the safety commission has developed the Lagos State Occupational Safety Master Plan, the first of its kind, and is ready for publication. Mojola said this was possible because “Lagos seeks to always lead in every good thing, especially in making the environment safe and conducive for living.”
He added: “With regard to making Lagos a 21st Century city, we’ve developed the first Lagos State Occupational Safety Master Plan, which we intend to publish. We continue to develop Operational Safety and Health (OSH) regulations, and also ensure that appropriate safety regulations required for monitoring are produced. An example is the Swimming Pool Safety Regulation, which we developed and passed by the Lagos State House of Assembly in the Year 2021, which has become the benchmark for managing safety across swimming pools. This came into force following some contraventions concerning swimming pool operations last year.”
To ensure greater workplace safety, security and governance, the commission also championed the push for establishing an Occupational Safety Cadre at the federal level whereby states can also domesticate the Act through the Office of the Head of Service. The creation of this cadre was approved at the 43rd National Council of Establishment (NCE) for the Public Service. Mojola further said: “The Occupational Safety Cadre will be a new team of inspectors deployed across states, and different domains to check for safety infractions. We believe that if we can catch these infractions on time, it stops an accident from happening. The core and point of the Lagos State Safety Commission are to protect lives and prevent accidents, and that is what we continue to do across the THEMES agenda as a whole.”
This year, the commission has made an extra effort to further drive the message of safety across the populace. “We will focus on railway safety, especially. The Blue Line will start operations soon, so we’re working with the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA) on ensuring that passengers are safe. We will also continue to drive the message of school safety to pupils, and try to catch them young. We want them to think and act safely at a young age so it becomes a part of them while continuing with our Safe Schools Lagos (SSL) initiative.
“We will also focus on public safety at large events centres, parties; ensuring that people can socialise safely. We will step up inspections, compliance and enforcement to ensure that we have a robust system of identifying these hazards before they happen,” Mojola said.
Health and safety personnel also hailed the safety commission for its efforts at minimising and managing disasters across the state. They described the commission as necessary to instil a culture of safety in residents.
Founder of Hybrid Group, a safety training and consulting firm, Dapo Omolade said: “Safety isn’t just a necessity; it is about life. I think the Lagos State Government has done well as the only one in Nigeria currently to set up an agency to manage the health and safety of the people. It’s necessary for people who live and work in Lagos to reciprocate the government’s gesture by working safely. Working safely is about their lives, and not even about the government. This is because everybody feels it whenever there is an accident; it’s a concern for the government because it’s the life of its people that are lost.”
The Executive Secretary of the Apapa branch of the Manufacturers’ Association of Nigeria (MAN), Okpe Sunday, thanked the commission for partnering with Apapa MAN on enthroning a safety culture among member companies. He said: “We started partnering with the safety commission last year and this has yielded fruits. Their constant training and sensitisations to our member companies have ensured that our working environments are safe and conducive to the safety of all.
“Because we are manufacturing entities, our environment must be devoid of whatever may cause accidents; it must not be exposed to risk. And so the safety commission checks our work environments and certifies us fit and proper for people to work in. And we are grateful for that because everything the commission does is for our own good.
Okpe also advised the people on safety: “When we see most government regulatory agencies, the first thing that comes into mind is the taxes and levies. But, inasmuch as we have to pay, it is best for people to think of their safety first. Most people work in environments that are prone to disasters and don’t even know because they don’t have people who can identify the risk level of such environments. That is what the Lagos State Safety Commission is there to do; the agency assesses the work environment to see how conducive it is to workers’ well-being and gives guidelines on how to make it fit. So, I implore Lagosians to comply with them, welcome them, and give them that benefit of the doubt, so that we all can live and work safely.”
The Executive Director of Safety Advocates, a non-governmental organisation, Jamiu Badmus, said “the vision for establishing the Commission is still working well. The Safety Commission engages in safety campaigns and sensitisations which have far-reaching effects on the people. The commission brought ‘Vision Zero’ to Nigeria. Vision Zero is an international organization that talks about zero accidents and the commission has been actively involved in all of these campaigns which gave added value.
“Also, in this world of sustainability, which speaks about the three Ps – the people, the profit and the planet – the commission is taking care of the people’s angle that will make us profitable as a business.”
Badmus, who is also a safety consultant, advised people to embrace positive lifestyle changes that are in alignment with the safety of lives and property. He said: “Two very critical pieces of advice to people is to do away with shortcuts because ‘shortcuts, cut lives short.’ It’s dangerous if we try to do shortcuts, without thinking of safety. It is better to be patient than to be patient. Nigerians should learn to be cautious in whatever they do and also spread the message of safety because everyone is concerned.”
