National Environmental Standard and Regulation Enforcement Agency (NESREA), said continued illegal mining activities, misapplication of chemicals on crops and deforestation of forestries across Nigeria has greatly affected human health.
The Nasarawa State Coordinator of NESREA, Dr. Wuave Terwase Daniel, stated this during an interview with journalists in Lafia, the state capital.
Dr. Daniel said that mining activities cause great havoc to human health as most people embark on the activities without knowledge of laid down procedures, thereby exposing some heavy metals that were before now seen dormant becoming active.
He explained that crops planted arroud the mining zone, when harvested and taken to market for sale, comes with heavy metals, and when consumed, result to cancer.
He added that the danger associated with agricultural products is misapplication of chemicals on crops thereby chemicalising food in the market, causing danger to health system of the populace.
On environmental impact assessment, he decried lack of facilities that would facilitate the compliance with the lay down laws, especially the small and micro facilities to enable the environmental management track down activities of pollutions which are on daily bases.
He also highlighted the importance of water as key area of the agency, said the body regulate and make sure water bodies are not polluted.
NESREA, is a federal government agency, saddled with the responsibility of monitoring and enforcing activities of the federal ministry of environment be it construction, solid waste, waters amongst others.