Ekiti State government has directed the local government chairmen to aggressively enforce environmental cleanliness in markets and restaurants to correct the noticeable unhygienic situations caused by poor consciousness of traders and food sellers to health sanitation.
The government lamented that the markets and local restaurants located in some communities have their environments littered with refuse and sewage, thereby becoming a potential avenue for outbreak of contagious and killer diseases.
The Ekiti State Deputy Governor, Chief (Mrs) Monisade Afuye, gave the directive on Saturday while monitoring the monthly environmental sanitation exercise in Gbonyin and Ayekire Local Government Areas of the State.
Mrs Afuye, in a statement by her Media Assistant, Victor Ogunje, directed the chairmen to embark on advocacy and sensitisation campaigns across the towns in the local governments on the imperative of being zealous with environmental cleanliness.
The Deputy Governor said: “What we saw in some of the market centres were not impressive enough. Their environments were littered with refuse and sewage, which can trigger outbreak of infectious diseases.
“Markets are supposed to be clean because series of activities are going on there. Some are selling food materials and their environments were dirty, this is not good for our wellbeing.
“I am not also happy seeing some of our residents moving around when they are supposed to be at their residences showing compliance with the environmental law of their state as good citizens .
“This exercise is just once in a month and we expect that our people should be committed to it and for them to show enough commitments, the Local Government chairmen must enlighten them to know the implications of their poor attitude to environmental hygiene”.
Mrs Afuye also chastised commercial drivers and motorcyclists who fondly defied the restriction slammed on the state to enforce the exercise, threatening that the government will no longer tolerate such recurrent recalcitrant posture.
The Deputy Governor added that it has become a trend for commercial drivers and motorcyclists to be plying their trades during environmental exercise in brazen defiance to the restriction order pronounced by the state government.
She said: “Just take a look at the number of vehicles that were stopped at the barricade mounted to enforce the restriction by security agencies, this ordinarily shouldn’t happen if our people are serious with this exercise.
“I am also of the opinion that the commercial drivers coming from other states ought to have waited at the border and allow this exercise to last before coming into Ekiti as a way of showing strict obedience to our environmental law”.
Also speaking during the exercise, the Director, Planning and Research, Ministry of Health, Dr. Ibitoye Olubunmi and Coordinator, Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Programme (NEWMAP), Dr. Akinyemi Akinyugha , appealed to the residents to always treat issues of environmental health with all seriousness it deserves.
They added: “If you clean your environment , the money you are supposed to be spending on opportunistic diseases will be used for other productive economic engagements that will add values to your lives.
“The problem most of us have now is that, we spend most of our times visiting hospitals to seek medical helps over diseases that can be prevented if we clean our environment. Time has come for us to change this unwholesome habit”.
The Chairmen of Ayekire LG, Prince Sola Fadumiye and his counterpart in Gbonyin Local Council Development Area, Hon. Damilare Ajayi, applauded the government for showing serious concern about the wellbeing of the citizens.
They promised continued engagements with the critical stakeholders across the towns in their councils to broaden their knowledge about environmental hygiene.