Trail Reporters
A Bill for a Law to provide for the Establishment of Akwa Ibom State Signage and Advertisement Control Agency and for other Matters connected therewith’ which was sponsored by the Member, representing Eket State Constituency, Hon.David Lawrence, has been passed into law by the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly on Tuesday, May 8, 2018.
The bill apart from generating employment and improving the revenue base of the State, will protect our environment, sanitize our public places and showcase our State as a Tourism destination by regulating indiscriminate and indecent display of posters, illegal erecting of Billboards, signposts in public places.
The bill, we gathered, is vital, to enable Akwa Iron State align fully in accordance with the objectives of the Millennium development goals of the United Nations.
In a release, signed by the Press Secretary to the Speaker, Onofiok Luke said on Tuesday during plenary that the bill, when signed into law, will enable the state government generate revenue from outdoor advertising as well as put in place control against environmental hazards occasioned by such marketing communications activities.
He said the law is a “concrete step towards putting the right people in place to control outdoor advertising in our state.”
It would be recollected that, Hon. Onofiok Luke had in 2012 moved a motion seeking government action against indiscriminate advertising especially on primary and secondary school walls across the state.
Recollecting the motion on Tuesday, the speaker said “it was my humble opinion that our young children be spared the consumerist frenzy of such outdoor advertisements, at least within school hours.
“The house made recommendations urging government to act in line with that motion by ensuring that stringent control measures were put in place to check activities of advertisers.
“I am therefore delighted today that this honourable house has taken a bolder and more concrete step to make a law that will put the right people in place to control such and many other forms of outdoor advertising in our state.”
The bill which was sponsored by Hon David Lawrence of Eket state constituency has May 8, 2018 as its commencement date.
The speaker expressed gratitude to stakeholders and members of the public who turned up at the public hearing on the bill to make their inputs.
Stakeholders and industry experts who contributed to the bill at the public hearing held in June, 2017, included the honourable commissioner for environment, the head of service, the National Union of Micro, Small and Medium Scale Entrepreneurs of Nigeria, the Outdoor Advertising Agency of Nigeria among others.
He also commended members of the house for their “collective commitment to the success of the 6th assembly through the presentation of quality bills and expression of superior representation.”
He assured that by the end of the 6th assembly in 2019, “we shall have solidly affirmed our spot in history as a true people’s assembly.”
Speaking, the lead sponsor of the Bill, Hon.David Lawrence said, this was his many achievements in the House of Assembly, and he is poised to do more for the Ekid people, before the end of his first term in office.
