WASTE MANAGEMENT IN NIGERIA

Two weeks ago, I was driving to Asaba in the company of a friend and as we approached Onitsha, I expected the normal eyesore around Upper Iweka close to the River Niger bridge. I was pleasantly disappointed, the whole place looked much cleaner, there weren't dumps of refuse in the middle of the road. There were no lumps of caked excreta peeping at you from the huge drainages. Just as I was expressing my joy to my friend, we both saw a man in the full glare of the public, in broad day light, moved into the drains, pulled down his pants and began dropping lumps of bum grenades into the gutter. I almost fainted with shock. I told my friend we should park the car and flog the idiot out of the gutter, my friend looked at me like I was from another planet and asked me “For Onitsha?'' I quickly got the message and swallowed my anger fast fast.

I used to think that Onitsha and Aba were the dirtiest cities on planet earth. This is because these cities welcomed you with scenes of filth and says goodbye with rottenness and ugliness. However in last few years, it seems like Port-Harcourt once known as the garden city is seriously trying to catch up with Onitsha and Aba .

Whosoever developed the tactics where people are asked to drop their refuse in the middle of portharcourt streets should be brought out and publicly scrutinised for personal hygiene.

I can bet that he wears dirty singlets. I can assure you that his socks smells. You will see that his boxers have shit lines in the middle. You will observe that his under arms are unshaved and when you look down stairs, its a mini forest. When you come close to him, you’d notice that he picks his nose and when you aren’t looking , he’d scratch his groin. Its very easy to know, the things you hide most always reveal themselves in whatever you dish out.

How on earth can the middle of the road be the best place to dump refuse? How? I really do not understand.

The newly constituted Rivers State waste management board should begin to think outside the box and discontinue this very dirty strategy.

First, I think people should be made to pay for their waste to be disposed. Its stupid social welfare to dispose the refuse of the masses for free. For Christ sake, the poor and those who need social welfare do not generate much waste. Na big man dust bin dey full pass abeg.

Secondly, every compound should be installed with huge refuse bins inside the compounds while waste management officers will go inside to collect and dispose. Any building that doesn’t pay should live with their own filth.

Then, government shouldn’t have any business disposing refuse. How can government be packing dirty? Waste management should be private sector driven while a government agency should act as regulators and also collect revenue.

Moving away from Rivers State, I think President Buhari should immediately announce the formation of the War Against Indiscipline program and set up a board headed by a reputable no nonsense Nigerian.

I think a bill should be sent to the National Assembly listing out fines and penalties for different acts of indiscipline from road traffic offence, to littering, urinating in public, throwing refuse in the drains etc. If this can’t be done on the exclusive list, then the state assemblies should make these laws and let the police( Not any agbero tax force) enforce the law.

Government will be amazed by the huge revenue that will come from these fines and penalties. Everyones head will start correcting itself.

In Atlanta I once saw a sign which said you’d be fined a thousand dollars for throwing things on the road. Thats 220,000 naira. In Singapore, not flushing a public toilet properly can send you to jail . Even countries like Democratic Republic of Congo are making huge revenue through traffic offences with camera installed robots on the streets.

President Buhari came into power with a reputation of a stern disciplinarian. The reason why we have corrupt leaders is because we have undisciplined citizens.

The Citizenry is like the pool where the scoop of leadership is often gotten from. If the pool is dirty, each scoop will be dirty. To get a clean scoop, we must get the pool clean.

President Buhari has a great opportunity to clean this pool now.

May God help him.
Written by Agala kennedy.