Ogun eyes safety commission, pushes industrial safety audits

The Ogun State Government has unveiled plans to establish a Safety Commission and commence a comprehensive statewide industrial safety audit programme as part of efforts to strengthen workplace safety and promote sustainable industrial growth.

Ola Oresanya, the Commissioner for Environment, disclosed this at recent training workshop for safety personnel in Abeokuta. The workshop, themed “Industrial Resilience and Safety Governance: Building a Culture of Compliance, Prevention and Sustainable Growth,” brought together safety professionals from industries across the state.

Oresanya said the planned transformation of the existing Safety Office into a fully empowered Ogun State Safety Commission would create a more responsive regulatory framework capable of improving policy implementation, technical oversight, enforcement and collaboration with industry stakeholders.
He explained that recent inspections, facility assessments and preliminary safety audits conducted by the ministry revealed a significant gap between documented safety procedures and actual workplace practices.

According to him, many organisations possess sound safety policies on paper but fail to consistently implement them, resulting in compliance driven more by inspections than by an ingrained culture of prevention.

The commissioner stressed that the forthcoming statewide industrial safety audit programme would not be punitive but would serve as a diagnostic tool to identify emerging risks, establish measurable safety performance benchmarks and help industries improve operational resilience.

He added that government expects every industrial facility in Ogun State to adopt measurable safety standards, making safety a key performance indicator alongside production, quality and profitability.
Oresanya urged safety officers to see themselves as change agents and organisational leaders whose decisions could determine whether workers return home safely each day.

He also called for stronger collaboration between government, industries and workers, stressing that safety is a shared responsibility essential for protecting lives, safeguarding investments and sustaining economic development.

The commissioner formally declared the workshop open, charging participants to implement practical safety improvement plans that would serve as roadmaps for continuous workplace safety enhancement across Ogun State.