A branch of Christ Life Church in the state capital of Ibadan, at Golden Estate, Oluyole, has been sealed by the Oyo State Government.
The Ministry took a number of unsolved efforts to settle disputes between the complainants, the inhabitants, and the church management before closing.
In his address from Ibadan, the State Government’s only recourse, according to Commissioner of Environment and Natural Resources Arch. Abdulmojeed Mogbonjubola, was to shut the church property in order to prevent unavoidable flare-ups between the locals and the church on Sunday.
The Commissioner emphasised that a resolution meeting was held with the parties in the Ministry’s conference room on 29th November 2023 where the Church refused to sign an undertaking letter, with the excuse to get approval from its Headquarters and report back on Monday 4th December 2023.
Services could not be held because some community members had shut the estate gate against Christ Life Church members.
According to Mogbonjubola, the current administration will not back down and tolerate any kind of escalation.
He added that on Thursday, November 9, 2023, Ministry representatives paid a visit to the neighborhood after receiving many complaints about the loudness from neighbors living next door to the church. The objections were made by official letters and phone calls.
“The team periodically recorded the church activities’ sound level, beginning with praise and worship, and found that the average reading was seventy-four (74) DB (daily). This is in violation of the Extant Environmental Regulations of 2023, Section 58, Paragraph (b), which stipulates that residential areas’ daytime noise limits cannot be higher than 65 DB. Thus, it was ascertained with sound measurements that the church constituted noise pollution.”
He frowned at the consistent crisis, which consequently resulted in the sealing of the church.
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