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Gilbert Ekezie
The Lagos State government recently ordered the immediate closure of religious services and other operations at the Glory Land Chapel Assemblies of God Church, located at 32, Babatunde Street, Olodi Apapa, Lagos. The state government cited noise pollution as reason for its action. It said the establishment was closed over the noise pollution during services as well as its failure to comply with the directives of the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA) Law, 2017, Part VI, Section 178-182, 188, 193-194.
In a sanction letter signed for the general manager of the agency, Dr. D.A. Fasawe, and issued to the church on February 18, 2020, LASEPA directed that the church should cease forthwith to operate at the site and remain closed until its compliance status was deemed satisfactory.
LASEPA also warned that any breach of the directives would be visited with stiffer sanctions against the religious establishment and its officials.
According to the letter, the agency also fined the church for non-compliance under the Polluter-Pay-Principle to the sum of N50,000.
“The fine is payable to the Lagos Treasury Single Account, and the church remains closed until its compliance is satisfactory,” said the agency.
But officials and members of the church are not amused by the closure. In his reaction, the pastor in charge of the church, Emeka Idenyi, described the act as religious intolerance, persecution against the faithful and contravention of the church members’ freedom of worship as enshrined in the Nigerian constitution.
He debunked the allegation by LASEPA that the church had been making noise during its services, pointing out that there were no external speakers mounted by the church. He said there were only two small speakers mounted inside the church.
The cleric accused a neighbour who confronted him that the church makes noise, threatening that he would continue petitioning LASEPA until the church was closed down.
“The man told me that I am the fifth pastor of the church that he had petitioned against concerning the noisemaking issue, which means it has always been his intention to close the church. He said the church was accused of not having walls, and we raised our wall,” said the pastor.
Idenyi also stated that LASEPA charged the church a fine of N50,000 without clarification: “We visited their office, asked them why we should pay such fine when we did not contravene the law. But the person that we met said that we should pay the money, before they could attend to us. Of course, that was about 4pm on Friday, so we could not do anything. Then, on Tuesday, February 17, we went for pastors’ meeting, and I received a call that they came and sealed the church. We visited their office at Amuwo Odofin and they told us that they would not answer us until 78 hours. We told them that we had already complied with all their demands by reducing our voices during worship, yet they insisted that we were guilty. They were bent on closing our worship centre.”
Idenyi wondered why the Assemblies of God Church should be crucified for noisemaking when its major activities were prayers, studying the Bible and singing praises to God.
“Everyone knows how we do our services. We are not the noisemaking type. But it surprises us as how the man kept confronting us,” he said.
According to him, the man who petitioned LASEPA against the church had a mosque in front of his house, with external loudspeakers, adding that worshippers there shout every day at top of their voices, without interference.
“Can you imagine how LASEPA closed our church because of one man? We were here before he came to buy the land that he built on. Since that time, he kept on tormenting us that the noise that comes from our church was disturbing him. He has a mosque in front of his house and no one disturbs him about that.”
He regretted that church members have been conducting services outdoors and have been spending money to rent canopies and chairs: “As a result, we decided to be conducting our services in the little space outside the church, which is not enough to accommodate our members. We even drafted some members to other service centres to ensure that no one is left behind.”
Meanwhile, the petitioner, Alhaji Tijani Jimoh, said the noise coming from the church posed a serious danger to his health as a hypertensive, spinal cord injury patient.
He said all efforts to make peace with the church since 2009 when he came to the place failed, hence the petition to LASEPA.
Said he: “I have met with the church leaders on several occasions to reduce the noise, but they did not and that has been telling on my health. I have been petitioning them on the matter. The present pastor in charge of the church is the fifth to witness the disagreement. And when I saw that they were not ready to listen to me, I continued, until this time when LASEPA came to seal the place.”
Jimoh also explained that, if the church had complied with his pleas to reduce the noise during their services, the matter would not have become complicated.
Contrary to allegations that he petitioned LASEPA to seal the church because of the mosque in front of his house, Jimoh said the matter had nothing to do with religion, as some people were saying.
“I do not have anything against the church, if not for the noise. We have a mosque here, but we guard against noise pollution,” he said.
