The Senate has directed urgent medical and environmental intervention in Ogijo, a community straddling Lagos and Ogun states, following reports of widespread lead poisoning linked to battery recycling factories.
Lawmakers summoned the Ministers of Environment, Health, Solid Minerals, Labour and Employment, together with the Director General of the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), to provide updates on the crisis. The Senate described the situation as a public health emergency, citing evidence of contamination from toxic emissions affecting children, women and factory workers.
Senator Mukhail Adetokunbo Abiru, who sponsored the motion alongside Senator Gbenga Daniel, warned that contamination levels in Ogijo had reached “186 times the internationally accepted safety limits.”
He said residents had reported symptoms including headaches, seizures and memory loss, consistent with long-term lead exposure.
“Children are dying slowly. Families have lived for years under poisonous smoke and dust,” Abiru told the chamber.
He noted that independent investigations had confirmed severe poisoning through blood tests and soil sampling, adding that processed lead from Ogijo had entered global supply chains. While acknowledging the closure of seven recycling factories and suspension of lead exports by the Federal Government, Abiru insisted that “exposure in the community continues to be extreme and unacceptable.”
The Senate resolved that the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) should deploy medical teams to conduct toxicology screening, blood-lead testing and treatment. It also directed the Federal Ministry of Environment and NESREA to carry out remediation of soil, groundwater and household dust. The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) was tasked with providing relief and temporary relocation for affected families, as well as establishing a National Lead Poisoning Response and Remediation Office.
Senator Godswill Akpabio, President of the Senate, recalled a similar incident in Akwa Ibom State in the 1980s, where lead contamination from a battery plant had shortened life expectancy.
“A lot of communities have suffered and died from here. We had a battery industry in my place in the 1980s. And then suddenly, we recorded a lot of deaths from the small river, because these things were just seeping into the river; it was very close to the river, and people were drinking from that same river, taking their baths from there and all sorts of things.
“And eventually, life expectancy in that community was not up to 40 years. So, of course, you know, in a rural community, people did not know that this was from lead poisoning.”
The motion was adopted by voice vote, and the Committee on Legislative Compliance was instructed to ensure full implementation of the resolutions within two months.
