people think that it is normal to make noise or that
they are immune to noise. As a result of this, many
people are suffering from hearing problems,
especially children.
According to Momoh Suleiman of Daily Trust, rowdy
market scenes, the whining clatter of grinding
machines, the second-hand clothes seller screaming
his geniuses, the siren of important government
functionaries, indiscriminate use of mobile phones
and the ubiquitous okada men, all contribute to
environmental noise.
A hypothesis by Evelyn, M. Ityavyar, Department of
Geography; and Tyav, Terungwa Thomas,
Department of Sociology, University of Abuja, said:
"Research has also shown that as the population of a
country grows/increases with attendant pressure on
the environment especially in the wake of improved
technologies, environmental abuse and pollution are
nevertheless heightened with corresponding effects
on lives of people and other living organisms…"
They added: "It has been observed further that man
through industrial, agricultural and the ever
increasing urbanisation process, security and
terrorist activities tend to directly and/or indirectly
pollute the environment. In Nigeria for instance,
environmental issues did not gain official
prominence until the 1988 Koko toxic waste dumping
saga which also brought to the fore the exigent need
to establish the Federal Environmental Protection
Agency, the Federal Ministry of Environment and
other relevant agencies, ostensibly to tackle
environmentally related issues, in the country.
These include issues such as environmental
pollution, sanitation, depletion of ozone layer,
desertification, flooding, erosion, poverty, bush
burning, deforestation, soil conservation etc. All
these mentioned above are a pointer to the fact that
issues of environment and in fact environmental
pollution, have taken a centre stage in the nation's
development process.
The stress of that is that 60 per cent of deaf children
in the country are out of school, said a baseline
study. The World Health Organisation has bemoaned
that the number of people affected with the hearing
impairment has grown from 42 million to 360 million
in over two decades, out of which, children who are
said to be suffering from the problem, are given at 32
million, and they are younger than 15 years old.
Seven million five hundred are under the age of five.
Indices have shown that about 14 per cent of pupils
have some kind of hearing loss. In the views of a
peadiatrician with an interest in audiology, Prof.
Bolajoko Olusanya, available studies have suggested
that up to 2.7 per cent or 162,000 of the six million
infants born annually might have hearing
impairment.
Of the 120 million babies born yearly in the
developing world, it is said that 718,000 are likely to
have permanent or sensor neural hearing
impairment at an estimated incidence of six per
1,000 live births compared to 2-4 per 1,000 for the
developed world.
Against this backdrop, some children in schools,
whose parents can afford hearing aids, said to cost
as much as N600, 000, need accessories such as
batteries and driers, while others cannot afford.
Against this scenario, many children are suffering
from what experts have described as growing effects
of noise, due to poverty.
Most hearing loss at a ripe age was gotten from
childhood, said connoisseurs.
According to a newspaper report, a majority of pupils at the Favour
Auditory Oral School, Ejigbo, Lagos, a special school
for the deaf and dumb, were not born deaf. It was
noted that the Project Director of the school, Mr.
Johnson Odigiri, averred that obtainable medical
reports had shown that 80 per cent of the pupils
were born without hearing mutilation.
So, what was the problem?
According to the source,
the children attained the "soft" disability after they
received treatment in the hospital following certain
infections. Prof Olusanya had said that there is the
need to carry out hearing screening before
discharging a newborn from the hospital or health
centre. A report on February 17, 2015 stressed as
follows: Generation exposed to constant noise could
be losing the ability to hear, noise pollution could be
blocking out natural sounds that boost health,
hearing is 'universal learning sense' active even when
we're sleeping.
In Lagos, a recent research has shown that as many
as 13.9 per cent of school pupils suffer from hearing
loss. Yet, in just two per cent of the cases did parents
or teachers observe signs of hearing loss.
"This is the finding of a study examining the
incidence of hearing impairment in Nigerian
schoolchildren. The prevalence of noise pollution is a
foremost cause of health concern in Nigeria. The
Nigerian Hearing and Speech Association has linked
the growing hearing difficulties being experienced by
Nigerians to noise pollution."
A columnist with The Punch, Bayo Olupohunda, has
decried the danger of noise pollution in a letter he
openly sent to Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos
State, saying, "My concern has become necessary
due to the danger noise pollution poses to residents.
Personally, as a resident living in Lagos, it has
become a nightmare. Our health is suffering due to
the bedlam our city has become…"
He further stated: "Noise pollution has also impacted
on the global perspective of Lagos. In recent years,
this city has consistently been rated poorly by the
Economic Intelligent Unit in its global livable cities
rankings… Everywhere one turns in this city, there is
no respite from noise pollution.
There is bedlam
everywhere. Noise pollution in Lagos has assumed a
frightening level…
"Lagos cannot continue like this. The law has to be
enforced for some sanity and decency to return.
Noise may be the root cause of around three deaths
in every hundred traditionally blamed on heart
disease according to a study that suggests many
thousands of people may be dying because of lack of
peace and quiet.
"More people than ever are now complaining about
unwanted noise pollution – from rowdy neighbours,
street vendors and loud traffic to late-night parties,
churches, pubs and clubs. A groundbreaking
research from the WHO has provided estimates of
the impact of noise revealing a striking contribution
of noise to premature deaths…"
Most times, some Nigerians have a thought that their
source of electricity should not provide electricity
indefinitely. This rather obscure thought was
necessitated by the fact that many of the countrymen
and women do not know how to live together with
their neighbours. The noise they generate from their
record players and televisions is enough to make one
go mad.
The irony is that when one tells some of the people in
this line of behaviour to check their ways, they
remind the person of how the complainant does not
belong to this country and that the person should go
to Europe or America and live.
Scholars have however defined pollution as a
derivation of the word pollute, which means, to make
something dirty or no longer pure, especially by
adding harmful or unpleasant substances to it. In
another development; the committee on pollution of
the United States National Research Council (1965)
defined pollution as an undesirable change in
physical, chemical or biological characteristics of our
air, land and water that may or will harmfully affect
human life or that of other desirable species, our
industrial processes, living conditions cultural assets
that may or will waste or deteriorate our raw
material resources. It is suggested that a prompt
legislative framework should be put in place to make
laws that would tackle headlong issues of noise
pollution in Nigeria.
According to them, the World Health Organisation
recommends an industrial noise limit of 75 Decibels
so that any sound level above 75 dB is already a
pollutant. Nevertheless, in dance halls, recording
centres, airports, rail terminals and others, noise is
normally heard above 115 dB sound level that must
be avoided. This has to be avoided because, at this
level, short or long term effects alike that can cause
damage to the tympanic membrane – the ear drum-
is likely to occur. This may either be injurious to the
ear or lead to lots of hearing ability
– which may
result to deafness to the affected members of the
society.
Source- Punchng.com
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