OPEN GRAZING: ABIA STATE GOVERNMENT TO IMPLEMENT LAWS

The Abia State government through the Abia State Environmental Protection Agency, ASEPA, has expressed concern over the uncontrolled movement of cows by the Fulani normadics in the state.

The Deputy General Manager (DGM), of the agency, Catechist Ambrose Jonah revealed this in Umuahia on Wednesday at the ASEPA office, while fielding questions from newsmen.

He wondered why these herders and theor animals move even though the government house unchecked. He regretted the poor implementation of laws that are already there to checkmate these things in the state, more regrettably at this time when the state is undergoing transformation, especially in the area of sanitation.

Catechist Jonah said plans are underway to put a check on the activities of these herders as he assured of taking the message to the Executive Governor of the state, Dr Alex Otti.

“Sometime ago, that should be about two weeks ago, I called the CSO. And I complained about this to him. To the extent that some of these cows, pass through the government house.”

“It’s a shock. And something like this is not supposed to happen in a state like Nigeria. So I have told him, and we have an agreement.”

“So by the special grace of today, I will be sending a memo to the governor. So that at least, let me just seek his own opinion. I have also spoken to our AG, the Attorney General.”

“There should be a law prohibiting some of these things. There are other places where they have to at least graze, and not within the town. So we are working on that.”

Very soon, you will get to know about it. There is already a law, just that it is not implemented.”

However, the ASEPA DGM expressed satisfaction in the area of environmental sanitation in the last two years, when the present administration came on board.

He recalled that before inception of the present administration in the state, Abia was known for bad roads and dirty environment, but the governor on assumption of office in May 2023 declared state of emergency on sanitation.

According to him, the story has changed. He attributed the success story to the efforts, strategies and modalities put in place by Governor Alex Otti.

“When we came on board, the state was something else. The state then was known by two terms, bad roads and dirty environments. And by the quick intervention of the governor, Dr. Alex Otti, he declared an emergency in the environmental sanitation sector.”

“And we were able to clear the environment. And today, we are still working hard to ensure that we sustain it. Cleaning the environment is not the most important thing, but sustaining it is the most important thing.”

“And I think he has been doing well. He has provided all the necessary equipment that will help us to work better. We now have our payloaders, the caterpillar that we are working with.”

“We also have the compactors, we have the roll-off. These are new ones he has provided for us. Because when we came on board, we didn’t have such equipment.”

He was of the opinion that why the previous administration could not do well in the area of sanitation was insufficient machinery to carry out the duties of the agency which he said the Governor Alex Otti led government has been able to surmount by providing the necessary equipment for the job.

.”And I believe it could be one of the reasons why the past administration could not do better. And now today, since we have all these equipment, that’s why you can see us driving better. And apart from that, he has also provided us with some of these keke buses that will enable us to monitor the environment.”

And he has also provided the keke pickups. In my zone, we have about 15 of them to enable us to move from one street to another and all estates to pick their waste. There are some places the compactors cannot enter, so these keke buses do enter all those places to evacuate their waste.”

In the area of blocked drainages in the state, the DGM said the government was very intentional in opening up blocked drains in the state.

“So by the special grace of God, I think the governor has done us well by providing us all the necessary equipment to enable us to work. And when we came on board, there were a lot of ancient gutters. We never knew, people never knew that there were gutters in some of these very places.”

“He made it mandatory that we must open those gutters, which we did. And today, I think water is flowing very well within the state. And to sustain it, we are ensuring that people clean their gutters.”

“And we find that people dump waste in gutters. So by the special grace of God, within these very two years, we have done well by the support of the governor. Actually, we have a lot of plans at hand.”

He called on Abians to join hands in keeping the environment clean by avoiding littering and dumping refuse into the gutters. He pleaded with the media to join in the campaign for a clean Abia.