The Oyo State Government has indicated its resolve to enforce total restriction of human and vehicular movements during the Saturday national monthly environmental sanitation exercise.
Making this disclosure in Ibadan, the state capital on Friday was the Commissioner, Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, Dr. Abdulateef Oyeleke.
The restriction of movement, he said, would however not affect those on essential duties, including health workers, journalists and the law enforcement agents.
A statement made available to journalists by the commissioner indicated that the exercise would hold between 6am and 9am on Saturday, warning the residents against the violation of the environmental sanitation law.
The statement indicated that deviants would face severe penalties, stressing, “There shall be total restriction of both vehicular and human movement except for those on essential duties.”
It directs chairmen of Local Government and Local Council Development Areas in the state to ensure compliance in their respective domains as it is expected that citizens utilize the period to clean their surroundings.
The release further directs all directors of Environmental Health Services in the 33 Local Governments and 35 Local Council Development Areas within the state to monitor the exercise as a matter of duty.
The statement, therefore, enjoined shop owners, market men and women, security operatives, Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria, Tricycle Owners and Operators Association of Nigeria, the Association of Commercial Motorcycle Riders of Nigeria and the general public to comply with this directive.
It was gathered that the directive by the state government is sequel to the concern that was raised by concerned stakeholders recently on the sanitary condition of the state.
Against the claim the Chairman, Oyo State Waste Management Authority, Mr Morounfolu Adelore, that Ibadan is no more the dirtiest city in Africa, some people have said that the indiscriminate dumping of refuse in the state in recent time has assumed a worrisome level.
Meanwhile, Adelore had said, last year that the city had achieved 60 per cent compliance with waste management law, stressing that the present administration in the state set out to change the city from being ‘the dirtiest in Africa’ and through advocacy and enforcement, it achieved some of its aims.
He had said during an interview with journalists, “I will tell you that Ibadan has achieved 60 per cent adherence to regulations guiding waste disposal and management. If you go to areas where things used to be bad, we have changed the attitude of the people; it is progressing, people are complying daily. The system arrests offenders and fines them. This is a subtle enforcement.
“There was a time in the history of Oyo State that a former governor was given kudos for maintaining cleanliness in his first term and everything changed during the second term because the responsibility of this waste management agency was ceded to a consultant, the GM and directors were transferred back to their various ministries.
“Oyo State people are very simple and dynamic; it is a pace setter state, advocacy work will not stop, every nook and cranny will get the message and key into the clean and green architecture of OYOWMA.”
