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LASG to LG Chairmen: Create jobs through environmental sanitation in your domains

 

….Tasks residents on tidy drainages

Muritala Ayinla

Disturbed by the increasing rate of poor environmental practices in some local governments, especially tertiary drainages across the state, the Lagos State government on Wednesday charged chairmen of local councils to consider generating employment through cleaning of drainages in their domain.
The government, which said that challenges of floodings could be dealt with, if everyone takes ownership of the drainages in their environment, added that one of the responsibilities of the local government was to take care of the tertiary drains popular known as gutter in front of most houses.
Speaking at a one-day stakeholders meeting to deliberate on cleaning and maintenance of tertiary drains in the state, the state Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Mr Tunji Bello said that the decision to organise the meeting was borne out of the desire to improve the state of the drainage network and make them cleaner.
According to him, since the abolition of the monthly environmental sanitation, it had been observed that most Lagos residents had stopped the regular cleaning of drains in their locality, adding that the development had worsen the environment in the state.
He said: “Before the stoppage of the monthly environmental sanitation exercise in Lagos State, most residents limited themselves to cleaning the tertiary drains only once a month. Immediately the programme was invalidated by a court pronouncement, most residents refused to touch the drains in front of their houses. And as such most of the tertiary drains have become a refuse dump for residents with local governments not caring about their sanitation.
“This lethargy has not been helped by inadequate number of sanitation officers (Wole Wole) who are supposed to go round and enforce the law concerning failure of residents to maintain the tertiary drains in their areas and ensure its general cleanliness. This has brought undue pressure on the state agents who have several times had to embark on enforcement activities that should ordinarily have been undertaken at the local government level.”
Bello explained that the state government is responsible for maintaining and cleaning the major channels of secondary and primary nature because they are the bigger ones that crisscross several several local governments and also take water from LG to LG, adding that the tertiary drains which pass through the frontage of most residences have been left in the purview of local governments.
“With local governments are regarded as the third tier of government that is closer to the people including those in the hinterlands, government policy which saddled LGs with maintenance and cleaning of tertiary drains had it in mind that it would be easier for the Local Governments which has tenement control powers to manage individuals and their houses,” he said.
The Commissioner, who said that the problem of unemployment and insecurity could be addressed through environmental sector, urged the council chairmen to look into the possiblity of engaging teeming unemployed youths to clean and maintain the drainage for the benefit of everyone.
On his part, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Drainage and Water Resources, Engr Joe Igbokwe commended the intervention of EFAG, which Bello said works on about 6547 meters of tertiary drain channels round the state weekly while since its re-introduction by the Babajide Sanwo-Olu administration in October 2019.

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