Issues
Outrageous Sound And Human Health
What is noise and how to control it has become a puzzle in developing countries and sub Sahara Africa.
Sound translates to noise if it interferes with the comfort of people or exceeds acceptable limits
According to Online Dictionary, sound is measured in Decibel, a word coined after Alexander Graham-Bell, the inventor of the Telephone and audio device.
An audiologist, Friedrich Richie says the maximum sound measurement conducive for human health is 60 decibel. This measurement appears to be an odd concept to many sound system users and instrumentalists as most of them associate high sound with melody.
Every audio-visual electronic device has a sound regulation mechanism to guard against outrageous sound and noise Pollution.
Much has been said about noise Pollution. In fact, there are extant laws in Nigeria domesticated in Rivers State that prohibit outrageous sound. But the laws are far from being implemented. The human nature is averse to instructions and control.
According to a research study by Dr. John Green, a psychosomatic therapist, most defaulters of sound abuse are associated with religious organisations, Night clubs and studios.
Green said that sound has very powerful effects.
“The sound of your voice will do this just as much as anything else. In fact, probably more than anything else. I’m fond of saying that the human voice is one of the most powerful sounds on the planet. It’s the only sound that can say I love you or even start a war”
He noted that Noise health effects are the physical and psychological health consequences of regular exposure to consistent elevated sound levels. Noise from high traffic and high elevated sound from event halls are considered by the World Health Organization to be one of the worst environmental stressors for humans, second only to air pollution.
According to the research, elevated workplace or environmental noise can cause hearing impairment, tinnitus, hypertension, ischemic heart disease, annoyance, and sleep disturbance. Changes in the immune system and birth defects have been also attributed to noise exposure
An audiologist conducting an audiometric hearing test in a sound-proof testing booth and declares that:
Although age-related health effects (presbycusis) occur naturally with age, in many countries the cumulative impact of noise is sufficient to impair the hearing of a large fraction of the population over the course of a lifetime. Noise exposure has been known to induce noise-induced hearing loss, tinnitus, hypertension, vasoconstriction, and other cardiovascular adverse effects. Chronic noise exposure has been associated with sleep disturbances and increased incidence of diabetes. Adverse cardiovascular effects occur from chronic exposure to noise due to the sympathetic nervous system’s inability to habituate. The sympathetic nervous system maintains lighter stages of sleep when the body is exposed to noise, which does not allow blood pressure to follow the normal rise and fall cycle of an undisturbed circadian rhythm.
Stress from time spent around elevated noise levels has been linked with increased workplace accident rates and aggression and other antisocial behaviors. The most significant sources are vehicles, aircraft, prolonged exposure to loud music, and industrial noise, the study further reveals.
The loss of lives is alarming. There are approximately 10,000 deaths per year as a result of noise in the European Union.
The research also reveals quite interestingly that Noise induces hearing loss
Noise-induced hearing loss is a permanent shift in pure-tone thresholds, resulting in sensorineural hearing loss. The severity of a threshold shift is dependent on duration and severity of noise exposure. Noise-induced threshold shifts are seen as a notch on an audiogram from 3000 to 6000 Hz, but most often at 4000 Hz.
Exposure to loud noises, either in a single traumatic experience or over time, can damage the auditory system and result in hearing loss and sometimes tinnitus as well. Traumatic noise exposure can happen at work (e.g., loud machinery), at play (e.g., loud sporting events, concerts, recreational activities), and/or by accident (e.g., a backfiring engine.) Noise induced hearing loss is sometimes unilateral and typically causes patients to lose hearing around the frequency of the triggering sound trauma.
Tinnitus, the report says, is an auditory disorder characterized by the perception of a sound (ringing, chirping, buzzing, etc.) in the ear in the absence of an external sound source. There are two types of tinnitus: subjective and objective. Subjective is the most common and can only be heard “in the head” by the person affected. Objective tinnitus can be heard from those around the affected person and the audiologist can hear it using a stethoscope.Tinnitus can also be categorized by the way it sounds in one’s ear, pulsatile tinnitus which is caused by the vascular nature of Glomus tumors and non-pulsatile tinnitus which usually sounds like crickets, the sea and bees.
“Though the pathophysiology of tinnitus isn’t known, noise exposure can be a contributing factor, therefore tinnitus can be associated with hearing loss, generated by the cochlea and central nervous system (CNS). High frequency hearing loss causes a high pitched tinnitus and low frequency hearing loss causes a roaring tinnitus. Noise-induced tinnitus can be temporary or permanent depending on the type and amount of noise a person was exposed to”, the report says.
Noise has been associated with important cardiovascular health problems, particularly hypertension, as it causes an increase in levels of stress hormones and vascular oxidative stress. Noise levels of 50 dB(A) or greater at night may increase the risk of myocardial infarction by chronically elevated cortisol production.
Traffic noise has several negative effects, including increased risk for coronary artery disease, with night-time exposure to noise possibly more harmful than day-time exposure.It has also been shown to increase blood pressure in individuals within the surrounding residential areas, with railways and high elevated sound halls causing the greatest cardiovascular effects.Roadway noise levels are sufficient to constrict arterial blood flow and lead to elevated blood pressure. Vasoconstriction can result from elevated adrenaline levels or through medical stress reactions. Long-term exposure to noise is correlated to increase in cortisol and angiotensin-II levels which are respectively associated with oxidative stress and vascular inflammation. Individuals subject to greater than 80 dB(A) in the workplace are at increased risk of having increased blood pressure.
A 2021 systematic review on the effect of occupational exposure to noise on ischaemic heart disease (IHD), stroke and hypertension, coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) located 17 studies that met the inclusion criteria, comprising a total of 534,688 participants (7.47% females) in 11 countries and in three WHO regions (the Americas, Europe, and the Western Pacific).
The study found the low quality of evidence of the effect of occupational exposure to intense noise (e”85 dBA), compared to occupational exposure below 85 dBA (<85 dBA). They concluded that there is inadequate evidence of harmfulness for the studied outcomes with the exception for the risk of acquiring IHD, which was 29% higher for those exposed to noise in their workplace.
The report also identified other health effects of prohibitive sound as follows:
High elevated sound may also increase the risk of sleep disturbances, stroke, diabetes, and becoming overweight.
Psychological impacts of noise
Causal relationships have been discovered between noise and psychological effects such as annoyance, psychiatric disorders, and effects on psychosocial well-being.Exposure to intense levels of noise can cause personality changes and violent reactions. Noise has also been shown to be a factor that is attributed to violent reactions. The psychological impacts of noise also include an addiction to loud music. This was researched in a study where non-professional musicians were found to have loudness addictions more often than non-musician control subjects.
Psychological health effects from noise also include depression and anxiety. Individuals who have hearing loss, including noise induced hearing loss, may have their symptoms alleviated with the use of hearing aids. Individuals who do not seek treatment for their loss are 50% more likely to have depression than their aided peers.These psychological effects can lead to detriments in physical care in the form of reduced self-care, work-tolerance, and increased isolation.
Auditory stimuli can also serve as psychological triggers for individuals with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Sound affects us psychologically. It changes our emotions and our moods. Music will do that, of course. I’m sure you can think of a song that will make you happy. But when the sound comes buzzing, you see yourself hating the song at that moment or frowning.
So music changes our mood. However, it’s not the only sound that does that. There are plenty of sounds in nature that do. Bird song for example makes us feel relaxed and reassured, because we’ve learned over hundreds of thousands of years again that when the birds are singing we’re normally pretty safe. Sound can affect our emotional state positively or negatively.
Stress
Research commissioned by Rockwool, a multi-national insulation manufacturer headquartered in Denmark, reveals that in the UK one third (33%) of victims of domestic disturbances claim loud parties have left them unable to sleep or made them stressed in the last two years. Around one in eleven (9%) of those affected by domestic disturbances claims it has left them continually disturbed and stressed. More than 1.8 million people claim noisy neighbors have made their life a misery and they cannot enjoy their own homes. The impact of noise on health is potentially a significant problem across the UK given that more than 17.5 million Britons (38%) have been disturbed by the inhabitants of neighboring properties in the last two years. For almost one in ten (7%) Britons this is a regular occurrence.
The extent of the problem of noise pollution for public health is reinforced by figures collated by Rockwool from local authority responses to a Freedom of Information Act (FOI) request. This research reveals in the period April 2008 – 2009 UK councils received 315,838 complaints about noise pollution from private residences. This resulted in environmental health officers across the UK serving 8,069 noise abatement notices, or citations under the terms of the Anti-Social Behavior (Scotland) Act.
With additional record from WHO.
By: Igbiki Benibo
This is an open letter to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Chief Nyesom Wike.
Your Excellency,
Sir, ordinarily, I would not be writing an open letter to you, but like a wise man once said, “Silence would be Treason.” So I prefer to stay alive than face the consequences of silence in the face of crime. With each passing day, and as the socio-political tides continue to turn, it has become more pertinent that more people speak up in a concerted MANNER to prevent the death of our party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as we appear to be, in the words of W. B. Yeats, “turning and turning in the widening gyre” heading for an end where the falcon will no longer hear the falconer
It is unfortunate that since losing control of the Federal Government, with the loss of President Goodluck Jonathan at the poll in 2015, our party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has continued on a downward spiral. It is much more painful, that where it is expected that leaders within the party should rise to the challenge and put an end to this decline of our great party, some have instead taken up roles as its undertaker.
It will be hypocritical to claim aloofness to what I believe is your grouse with the PDP and I am not a hypocrite. It will be uncharitable on my part to discountenance the role you have played in strengthening the PDP from 2015 up until the last Presidential primaries of the party. It is my belief that your grouse against certain members of the party who you perceived worked against the party and abandoned it in 2015 and then came around much later to take control of the party, is justified. Also know that your decision to remain in the Party and stifle its progress on the other hand, as a sort of payback, stands condemned. For a man of your pedigree and stature, it is a dishonorable act, highly dishonorable and stands as testimony against all you claim to stand for.
At least, it can be argued that those who you hold this grudge against, abandoned the party completely and did not sit back while actively working to destroy it from within. But what then can be the argument on your own part, seeing that those you are currently working with against your party are the same people who set in motion, and executed surgically, the plans that not only ended our Party’s leadership at the centre, but ended up dislodging the first Niger Deltan to occupy Aso Rock as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Is this not akin to “cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face?” That will be worse than folly. Let us not throw away the baby with the bath water because we do not like the soap used in bathing the baby. It will be a grave mistake.
Honourable Minister, sir, it is rather unfortunate that of all people, you have also decided to play the role of an undertaker not only for our party, but for our dear Rivers State.
I will like to take you down memory lane a little. Let me remind you of your emergence as Guber candidate of the PDP in Rivers State, against all fairness and justice in 2014. You will remember that despite the reality being that you as an Ikwerre man was poised to replace a fellow Ikwerre man in Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi in our multiethnic state, Rivers people overwhelmingly stood by you and pushed for your emergence as Executive Governor of Rivers State in 2015. I dare say that your popularity in the entire Niger Delta region was at an all-time high at this point.
I want you to understand why you were loved across board leading to your eventual emergence as Governor of Rivers State in 2015; it was because when it looked like all were against the second term ambitions of the first Niger Delta man to emerge as President of Nigeria, you became not just a pillar but a beacon of resistance by standing for Goodluck Jonathan. Rivers people, as grateful and rewarding as they can be, paid you back by ensuring your electoral victory against the incumbent All Progressives Congress (APC) led by your predecessor. On your emergence, where there were second term Governors in the region, you, a first term Governor, was seen by the people as not just the leader of the PDP, but the leader of the entire Niger Delta region. You earned it, and no one could dispute it.
In 2019, when your re-election bid was being challenged ferociously, Rivers people once again stood solidly behind you. Many were killed in the process of defending your votes. Do you remember Dr. Ferry Gberegbe that was shot and killed while trying to protect your votes in Khana Local Government Area? There are many more unnamed and unrecognised sons and daughters of Rivers State who sacrificed their lives so that you could emerge as a second term Governor of Rivers State.
In 2022/23, Honourable Minister, you oversaw a party primary across board that saw some candidates imprisoned and internal party democracy jettisoned for your wishes, leading to the emergence of flag bearers of our party all singlehandedly picked by you. You have on more than one occasion publicly stated that you paid for all their forms. Even those shortchanged in this process licked their wounds and continued to play their roles as party members to ensure the success of the party at all levels. In what will go down as one of the most keenly contested elections in recent Rivers history, with formidable candidates like Senator Magnus Abe of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Mr Tonye Cole of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and the vibrant youth driven Labour Party (LP), PDP emerged victorious across board except for Phalga Constituency 1 that was lost to the Labour Party. (Not that you did not loose in some other LGA’s but let’s stick to the official figures declared by INEC).
It begs the question, why then do you want to burn down Rivers State, when everyone who now holds political office emerged through a process designed and endorsed by you? Is it that you do not care about Rivers people and you are all about yourself? If so, I am forced to believe that those around you are not telling you the truth. The truth being that in a state where your words were law; where houses and businesses could be demolished or closed down without any recourse to legalities, where Executive Orders could be deployed to stifle the opposition, that your popularity is now at an all-time low. Probably because they are afraid of you, or of losing the benefits they gain from you, they fail to tell you that what you might perceive as a battle against your successor, has slowly but gradually degenerating into a battle against Rivers State and Rivers people. You know, there is a popular saying that, a man can cook for the community and the community will finish the food, but when a community decides to cook for one man, the reverse is the case.
LEAVE FUBARA ALONE
You have gone on and on about being betrayed by Governor Siminalayi Fubara. You point fingers forgetting that some of those same fingers quick to spot betrayals point straight back at you. It is not Governor Fubara that has betrayed the PDP by working against it in the just concluded General Election, and working with the opposition at the State and Federal level to destabilise the party. It is you, Honourable Minister. It is not Governor Fubara that betrayed Rivers people by instigating a political crisis with propensity to escalate ethnic tensions in Rivers State. It is you Honourable Minister. It is not Governor Fubara that has declared himself God over all in Rivers State and has no qualms with burning the state to the ground to prove a point. It is you Honourable Minister. It is you Honourable Minister who told the world that the APC was a cancer and you can never support a cancerous party. It is you Honourable Minister who ended up facilitating the emergence of the same “cancerous” APC that has accelerated the economic decline of this country and further impoverished our people with no remorse. All so you can be a Minister of the Federal Capital Territory? The lack of self awareness is gobsmacking.
Some days back I came across a video where you talked about death and how you do not cry when you hear about the death of some people because you have no idea what might have caused it considering many a politician swear “over dead bodies” and still go back on their words. Those words made me think, and I could see the reason behind them. You see, in chosing to be God in the affairs of Rivers people, you have closed your eyes and ears to reason; you see nothing and hear nothing that can cause you to rethink on the path you have chosen. In your quest to “show Fubara” you have unwittingly united a vast majority of Rivers people behind him, so much that even those who despised him because of you, now like or love him, because of you too. In your scheming, I will advise you not to forget that “the voice of the people is the voice of God”.
Note that the war which you have or are waging against Governor Fubara, has gone beyond being merely political as you might see in your minds eye. It is now one that, fortunately for some and unfortunately for others, has evolved into a war against Rivers people. It is good to point out that no one has taken a stand against Rivers people and won. No one has gone against God and won. In your defiant characteristic manner, it will be unfortunate if you believe your own hubris and that of those around you on the possibility of you being the first to successfully go against Rivers people. It will be a needless gamble; one where if you win you create more enemies for yourself than you can withstand on your political journey, and if you lose, your legacy becomes an inglorious and irredeemable one in Rivers State, the Niger Delta, and Nigeria at large. For your sake as regards posterity, it is my greatest wish that you have a moment of sobriety and a deep reflection and introspection on this path you have chosen.
Honourable Minister, sir, what is left of your legacy is on the brink of being completely desecrated and relegated to the dustbin of our political history, and it will be a sad end to what I will say has been a wonderful political career that many can only dream of. The ball is in your court, and may God Almighty have mercy on us all and forgive us for our shortcomings.
Gabriel Baritulem Pidomson
Dr Pidomson is former Chief of Staff, Government House, Port Harcourt and former member, Rivers State House of Assembly.
In 2015, I made a conscious decision to invest my financial resources, my time, and energy into supporting Nyesom Wike’s gubernatorial campaign. I poured my heart and soul into ensuring Nyesom Wike emerged victorious even at the risk of my personal safety.
Again in 2019, I doubled down on my commitment. I invested a significant amount of money to procure campaign outfits for all twenty-three Local Governments Areas of Rivers State. I spared no expense in supplementing Wike’s election efforts in my own local government, and once again putting myself at great risk to safeguard the fairness and transparency of the electoral process.
However, despite my unwavering loyalty and sacrifices, I found myself abandoned and forgotten by Wike. Throughout his eight-year tenure, he failed to acknowledge my contributions or fulfill his promises and agreements. Even as a former Deputy Governor, Wike denied me my severance benefit.
My investment in Wike’s governorship was not just financial – it was a commitment of passion, dedication, and belief in a better future for Rivers State. Yet, his leadership style of dishonesty, greed, drunkenness and rash abuse of senior citizens brought me nothing but disappointment, misery and losses.
By the grace of God, today I speak not as a victim, but as a hero. I have accepted my losses, and I have moved on. And as I reflect on my experience, I cannot help but urge Wike to do the same and allow peace and development to reign in Rivers State.
Nyesom Wike, when you speak of investing in Governor Sim Fubara’s election, remember those like me who also invested in you. Remember the sacrifices I made, the risks I took, and the promises and agreements you left unfulfilled.
It is time for you, Wike, to let go of the past and allow Governor Sim Fubara the breathing space he needs to lead Rivers State forward. Allow him to focus on the challenges of good governance and the aspirations of the people. Spare him these unwarranted and ill-conceived political manoeuvrings founded on personal agenda and not for general good of Rivers State and her people.
I may have lost my investment on Wike, but I have not lost hope in the future of Rivers State. And together, we will continue to strive for a brighter tomorrow.
Long Live the Governor to Rivers State, Sir Siminialayi Fubara!
Long Live the Good People of Rivers State!!
Long Live the Federal Republic of Nigeria!!!
Engr Ikuru is former Deputy Governor of Rivers State.
Tele Ikuru
