The Registrar/CEO of the Environment Health Council of Nigeria, EHCON, Dr. Yakubu Mohammed Baba, has commended members of the Pest Control Association of Nigeria, PECAN, for the ability to work with other professionals in ensuring the safety of the nation’s environment.
Baba spoke via zoom at a Multi-Stakeholder Enlightenment and Engagement Forum organised by PECAN in conjunction with EHCON to mark this year’s World Environment Day 2025 on Thursday June 5 at Raddission Hotel, GRA, Ikeja, Lagos.
The theme of the event is “Our Land, Our future.”
The event was also organised to review the National Environmental Health Guideline Regulations, 2025.
According to Baba, the nation needs to safeguard the nation’s environment and human wellbeing.
His words: “I am pleased to recognise the fruitful partnership between the Environment Health Council and PECAN on public health through pest control in Nigeria.
“As you are aware, vectors and pests transmit deadly diseases such as Lasaa fever, malaria and others.
“We should standardize pest control services, train and control practitioners, strengthen surveillance, institutionalise inter-sectoral collaboration and bring stakeholders together under one regulatory system.
“PECAN has demonstrated that professionals can work hand in hand to ensure public good. The National Environmental Health Regulation 2025 is a life document that will bring all the regulators together.”
The EHCON CEO said further that the regulation was a child of necessity, assuring that the council would work with all the stakeholders so that the issue of definition of responsibilities would be well spelt out.
He stressed that the time had come for the council to sit down and make sure that one could not be a regulator and a service delivery company at the same time.
Said he: “There should be a demarcation of the works of the various stakeholders. The council, under my able leadership, would bring all the stakeholders together to ensure the implementation of the regulation.
“We will create an environment for the private sector to thrive. Every profession that is viable is strengthened by the private sector. It is important to step up implementation and increase awareness.
“We should know that pest control is a national disease prevention strategy. World Environment Day should not just be a celebration, but a call to action.”
Earlier in his welcome address, the National President of PECAN, PCO Olakunle Williams, said that the significance of marking World Environment Day 2025 could be seen in the fact that it was a day globally recognised for advocacy, reflection, and action in support of a healthier, and more sustainable planet.
PCO Williams stated that the Multi-Stakeholder Enlightenment and Engagement Forum was both timely and historic.
He reasoned that the event offered the participants a strategic opportunity to “collectively engage with the newly introduced National Environmental Health Practice Regulations 2025,” which he said marked a transformative shift in the nation’s national approach to pest and vector control regulation in Nigeria.
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He said: “For decades, pest control licensing in Nigeria was predominantly handled at the local government level.
“While this structure offered grassroots reach, it also created regulatory fragmentation—characterized by inconsistencies, lack of operational standards, and a proliferation of unlicensed practitioners. This posed clear risks to public health and environmental integrity.
“In response, the 2024/2025 Regulatory Framework has ushered in a multi-tiered licensing model aimed at correcting these imbalances.
“At the federal level, the Environmental Health Council of Nigeria, EHCON, now serves as the apex regulatory authority—responsible for issuing national licenses, setting professional benchmarks, and eliminating quackery.
“The states are empowered to issue operational permits and enforce compliance, while local governments are repositioned to support community-level enforcement and advocacy.
“This collaborative model represents a paradigm shift—an evolution from monopoly to partnership, from fragmentation to cohesion.”
Williams stressed that the new regulation ensured that pest control operations across Nigeria were standardized, professionalized, and responsive to both national and local realities.
He then expressed appreciation to their partners including EHCON, the Federal Ministry of Environment, LASEPA, Ogun State Ministry of Environment, EHOAN, and other stakeholders, whose unwavering commitment, he said, had brought the association to a defining moment.
“As the President of PECAN, I am especially pleased by the strong presence of pest and vector control professionals here today.
“This is a testament to our shared commitment to raising the bar in public health pest management. Let us seize this forum to deepen our understanding of the 2025 regulations; foster cross-sector collaboration for a unified and responsive environmental health ecosystem; promote continuous learning, compliance, and capacity-building among practitioners,” he said.
In his speech, the Managing Director of the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency, LASEPA, Dr Babatunde Ajayi, said that the state government had put laws in place to help the state’s ecosystem.
Ajayi emphasised that the state government had a law that people must fumigate their environment, adding that there were laws and several provisions, but that the government could not do the enforcement alone.
“Our environment laws are super. Engagements like these are important for the change that we want in the country. We need relationship in government. It will improve and get better.
“When we got in, we started shutting down places and imposing fines on them and punishing them, but we later became friends and we formed relationships.
“We have fine components for every offence committed against the environment in the state. But we need whistle blowers to inform us about some of these offences. We will continue to do our best to make the environment better.
“We need to be systematic the way we handle issues. When we do things right all of us will get credit for it,” he said.
Others who spoke at the event, commended the organisers and emphasised the need for the state to embrace a clean environment and for the residents to respect the environmental laws of the state.
An award was later presented to Dr Adedolapo Fasawe, who was represented at the occasion, as the Amazon of Environmental Health, 2025.
Also represented at the event were the Lagos State Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Hon. Tokunbo Abdulwahab, Lagos State Commissioner for Local Government, Chieftaincy Affairs and Rural Development, Hon. Bolaji Kayode Robert Affairs amongst others.
The event was also graced by several environmental officers from across the local governments in the state.
