Lagos Street Traders to Embark on Weekly Environmental Sanitation
Traders and residents on Lagos Street and its environs will henceforth carry out weekly environmental sanitation to be held every Monday to clean the area. The traders and residents are to henceforth ensure that all the drains in the area are desilted regularly to prevent blocking and give way to easy flow of flood whenever it rains.
These were part of the resolutions reached at a meeting held between the Edo State Commissioner for Environment and Sustainability, Arc. Joshua Omokhodion, officials of the Ministry of Environment and Sustainability, and traders and residents on Lagos Street and its environs.
The meeting which was at the instance of the Honourable Commissioner for Environment and Sustainability, was convened after his visit to Lagos Street during the heavy down pour on Tuesday, 3 July to enable him assess the flooding situation on Lagos Street and its environs, with a view to finding a comprehensive and lasting solution to the menace.
Addressing the traders earlier, Arc. Omokhodion harped on the need to come up with agreement and resolutions on how to tackle the environmental challenges confronting Lagos Street and its environs to stem the resurging flooding in the area. The Commissioner added that resolutions reached at the meeting will form the template for the resolution of sanitation and environmental issues in other parts of Benin City and Edo State in general.
“As a result of the desire of Governor Godwin Obaseki to finish well, we decided to visit the area while it was raining on Tuesday, to ascertain the level of flooding in the area and how to tackle it. We have seen that the environmental problems there, especially flooding requires the collaboration of all of us, both the government, traders and residents of Lagos Street and its environs.
“It is the duty of government to provide infrastructural facilities like roads, drainages, markets and others; but it is disheartening that after government has provided these facilities, then the people using the facilities will be destroying them, putting waste inside drainages which will block them and stop the flood from flowing through them; thereby flooding the roads. These unhealthy environmental practices cause diseases, push floods into people’s houses and thus make life unbearable for them. This is not good and as a government that cares for the well being of the people, we’ll not allow that”, the Commissioner warned.
It was also resolved at the meeting “that Lagos Street traders and residents in the neighborhood will henceforth bag their wastes and drop at designated points for evacuation by waste managers.
“There will also be a monthly environmental sanitation to be carried out on the first Saturday of the month to enable the traders and residents carry out comprehensive cleaning of their environment”.
It was also agreed, “that all the drains in the area will be disilted by the traders and residents on a regular basis, while the debris disilted in the process should be evacuated promptly to prevent them from falling back into the drains”.
In his remarks, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Environment and Sustainability, Mr Joel Edionwe admonished the traders and residents to ensure that they bag the wastes they generate and dump at designated points for evacuation as agreed.
