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From Felix Ikem, Nsukka
The council Chairman, Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State, Hon. Jude Asogwa, has called for a coordinated effort by residents and stakeholders in the area to tackle the growing menace of indiscriminate dumping of refuse in drainage channels.
Asogwa made the call in Nsukka, at the weekend, during the council’s Multi-Stakeholders Environmental Town Hall Meeting, to discuss and curb the practice of emptying household and commercial trash into gutters.
The chairman said that most of the flooding experienced in some of the council areas were due to indiscriminate waste dumping in drainage channels, which he said was blocking the free flow of water.
“The essence of the multi-stakeholder environmental town hall meeting is to engage our people on how to ensure that Nsukka LG is the cleanest local government in the federation.
“Most of the flooding we often experience each time it rains is as a result of indiscriminate dumping of refuse in gutters by residents, which causes blockage to the waterways and results in flooding.
“We all have a role to play as residents, community leaders, stakeholders and government, to educate our people to understand that improper waste disposal in waterways causes severe flooding and spreads waterborne diseases; we must all take shared responsibility for our environmental sanitation,” he said.
The chairman, who lamented that his administration had, on several occasions, carried out a sensitisation campaign within the council area to educate residents on how and where to dispose of their refuse, regretted that the people had remained adamant and continued to dump their waste inside the gutter.
He reminded the people that the mobile court set up to try those arrested for dumping waste indiscriminately is still active, adding that the task force will soon be deployed to start work aggressively.
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Coordinator of the programme, Mr Igboke Onyebuchi, reiterated the government’s resolve to ensure that Nsukka remains safe from flooding, noting that this would only be attainable when individuals and communities join hands with the government in the fight against the flood menace.
He explained that the programme has been structured along zonal lines, with each zone targeting residents within a specific geographic area in order to identify issues peculiar to that locality.
Earlier, Leader of the Nsukka Local Government Environmental Taskforce Committee, Hon. Onyekachi Omeje, thanked the council chairman for convening the town hall meeting, describing it as the first of its kind and a platform that will help identify the salient issues responsible for the recurring drainage blockages in the area.
During the interactive section, participants, in their separate contributions, decried the attitude of residents toward waste disposal, drainage evacuation, and environmental cleanliness. They deliberated on ways to curb flooding in areas such as Ugwoye, Orba Road, Tectonics Road, Echara Road, Beach, Ogurugu Road, Aku Road, and Barracks, among others.
Solutions proposed by participants included the establishment of environmental marshals and a mobile court, reconstruction of drainage channels, provision of more waste disposal buckets, and a crackdown on waste scavengers.
Others are the segmentation of drainage monitoring duties by areas and localities; an overhaul of the drainage evacuation system, with its reconsideration as a proper council project; redesign of Nsukka City’s drainage layout; reconfiguration of drainage in identified problem areas; and the recovery and dredging of Iyi Nwa Otti, along Echara Road, as well as other ditches in areas such as Tectonics Road and the Agbani/Obimo/Ikwo Road corridor.
Participants expressed satisfaction with the opportunity given to them by the council chairman to be part of the decision-making process, and pledged their support for the council’s drive to put an end to flooding in Nsukka local government area.
Those present at the event were officials of the Enugu State Waste Management Authority (ESWAMA), Presidents-General (PGs) of Nsukka Town Union, and community leaders, among others.
