Anyone who is familiar with Aba will agree that one major challenge facing us is that of maintaining a clean and healthy environment.
I am a full blooded Aba indigene and resident. I love this town passionately but if we must tell ourselves the truth, we don’t take issues of the state of our environment seriously.
The mad chase for money has made us lose our sense of decency. We build shops indiscriminately and take over every available space. We just don’t care.
Yesterday, as I visited the ongoing reconstruction of Osusu Road, I was stared in the face by yet another major problem of our people. A self inflicted problem.
People will build houses and make no provision for proper disposal of their waste, both human and synthetic. Most buildings don’t have septic tanks or soakaway pits inside their premises. These people end up creating illegal channels that push waste water into the gutters and at times into the streets.
What I saw yesterday at Faulks Road shocked me to my bones. At one building at 81 Osusu Road by Ehime Street, the building there has no septic tank and all their waste, including human feaces, yes, NSHI, was channeled into the old drainage there, and because the road failed several years ago and the drainages blocked, the road is filled with all sorts of human waste. What is left of the gutters is filled with waste…human waste inclusive. Most of these waste materials are non degradable and have stayed there over the years.
The contractor told me that his biggest challenge has been the removal of these waste products. Mountains of debris have been scooped from the old gutters and as the scooping progresses, people are still pushing these waste materials into the streets.
I took time to engage some of the residents on this very terrible habit. I asked them why they have decided to endanger their own lives by this habit of poor hygiene. Most of them have shops where edible items are sold just beside the openings from which human waste rush out.
A good number of them said that they felt government had forgotten them, so they decided to turn the road into a huge dump for refuse, including human waste. According to them, since they no longer use the road for close to 13 years now, they decided to turn it into some use, even at the risk of their own health.
They said they are excited that at last, the government has remembered them and that most buildings now have started digging septic tanks within their premises, assuring that they will stop the practice of diverting their waste into the streets. They expressed their gratitude to Governor Okezie Ikpeazu for deciding to end their years of misery by embarking on this project.
Honestly, there are people who live under sub human conditions. Kai!
I nearly forgot what I came to at Osusu Road yesterday as the terrible environmental condition turned me into an emergency preacher on cleanliness and hygiene. I told one woman that her surroundings are so dirty that she and her family are sitting on an epidemic. She responded by asking me, DEDE, IHE NKAA ANYI DIKWANU, OWUNU NDU?
While this habit may appear to be prevalent amongst very low income earners, I can also tell you that the so called elites and VIPs also indulge in this habit. During the initial stages of the reconstruction of Faulks Road, it was discovered that most of the big duplexes along Brass Street housing men whose names ring bells in Aba channel their waste into the gutters and streets. Indeed, a good number of them even dug their own septic tanks in the middle of the road and totally outside their premises.
This attitude has to change!
While we blame government for not doing enough, we must all look at the man in the mirror and make that change. This is more compelling now that we have a Governor who is taking deliberate and measured steps to clean up our town and upgrade our public infrastructure.
Government alone cannot do this. We, the people must play our own part. If not nothing else, for the sake of our own health!
Government must however do more, especially in the area of stepping up surveillance and enforcing environmental laws. Our local government authorities have a great role to play here. Environmental Health Officers should be compelled to enter the streets and do their jobs.
Also, the local governments, especially in Aba metropolis should engage residents through landlord and tenants groupings, and have periodic meetings on this vexed issue. Each street can form local task forces to help enforce these regulations.
In Umule, we have such arrangements. A solid task force made up of residents and landlords who go round periodically to ensure that drainages are kept clean. There, no one dares channel waste from his building into the gutter, let alone human waste.
This post is non political. Diseases and epidemics don’t respect political boundaries and beliefs. We are all involved.
Let us help ourselves.
Ka Chineke mezie okwu!
Onyebuchi Ememanka wrote.
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