Onitsha, in Nigeria’s South East, has been tagged the world’s most polluted city, according to data obtained from the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Onitsha, along with three other Nigerian cities, Aba, Kaduna and Umuahia, featured in the top 20.
Onitsha’s figures are nearly twice as bad as notoriously polluted cities such as Kabul, Beijing and
Tehran and 30 times worse than London.
“Air pollution has risen by eight percent globally in the past five years,” resulting in three million premature deaths yearly, WHO says.
A recent study of Onitsha’s water pollution found more than 100 petrol stations in the city, often selling low-quality fuel, dozens of unregulated rubbish dumps, major fuel spills and high levels of arsenic, mercury, lead, copper and iron in its water.
The city’s many metal industries, private hospitals and workshops were all said to be heavy polluters emitting chemical, hospital and household waste and sewage.
Curiously, Lagos was not on the table of the latest urban air quality data, collected between 2011 and 2015.