The Abia State Environmental Protection Agency has restated its resolve to extend the state of emergency declared on waste management by the Governor Alex Otti-led administration to local communities in the state.
ASEPA Deputy General Manager of Umuahia zone, Mr Ambrose Jonah, stated this while flagging off the evacuation of refuse heaped for over two decades in Orie-Ntigha market in Amakpu in Isialangwa North Local Government Area of the state over the weekend.
Jonah revealed that the agency’s attention was drawn to the community sequel to a letter written by the traditional ruler concerning the health danger the refuse poses to the community.
He added that ASEPA will open an office in the area and employ street sweepers to ensure that the market will not return to its dirty state after the evacuation.
He said, “We are here by the directive of the governor to evacuate the ancient waste that has been here for many years. The traditional ruler of this community has written several times to draw our attention to the plight of the community because of the refuse.
“This heap of refuse poses a great danger to the people who are doing their business here, that’s why we were mandated to evacuate it. Under normal circumstances, the refuse is not supposed to be left in place for more than one week.
“That’s the change the governor mandated us to bring about, after this exercise we will site our own office here so that after every market, our sweepers will evacuate refuse immediately. We will also deploy buckets.
“We are pleading with Abia residents to key into the directive of the governor and ASEPA, as cleaning the state is our prerogative assignment and we can’t joke with it. We want people that come home for Christmas to see that Abia is a clean state.
“We beg our people to start bagging their refuse and evacuate refuse from cleaned drainage to avoid same from returning back to the gutters. We also beg those who will eat and drop on the road to stop because we have environmental courts that will try those caught in such acts.”
The traditional ruler of Amapu Ntigha, His Royal Highness Eze Jaccob Akoma, commended the state government for answering his people’s call by coming to evacuate the refuse.
He said the community will reach an agreement with ASEPA to regularly evacuate refuse from the market afterwards.
