The Edo State Waste Management Board has collaborated with the Ministry of Environment and Sustainability and Oredo Local Government Council. The collaboration has mobilized zonal waste managers to conduct a massive evacuation exercise in Ibiwe, Benin City.
Further, they have called on the residents to take ownership of their environment and protect it against indiscriminate dumping of refuse to avoid the creation of illegal dumpsites in their surroundings. The government has done so following Governor Godwin Obaseki’s determination and concerted effort to create a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment for the people of Edo State.
The call was made by the General Manager of Edo State Waste Management Board, Mr Osadebamen Charles Imariagbe, on Monday morning, August 28, 2023, during the massive evacuation intervention exercise in the Ibiwe community in Benin City of Edo State.
Here, many waste managers were on the ground with their trucks to clear off the monumental illegal dumpsite that has lasted for decades in the area.
Speaking to Journalists, Imariagbe said, “What you can see behind us was not as bad as what was behind you. What we had there was there for a decade, but we worked on it as directed by the State Governor and brought it down. And we have come to do the same to what you can see behind me”.
He states, “It has been a notorious practice by some residents and the inhabitants of this area, 1st and 2nd Ibiwe, they all come to dump refuse here illegally, and this is a practice that must stop. We have been warning them we are here to evacuate this one”.
“We have constituted a sanitation committee dominated by the community members so that they can take responsibility and take ownership as far as this place is concerned,” Imariagbe said.
Further, the General Manager said, “We are working closely with the Ministry of Environment under the leadership of the Commissioner for Environment and the Oredo Local Government under the leadership of the HOLGA and the Waste Management Board an organized trust, and we have made sure that all the necessary equipment to do this job today will be on the ground”.
Meanwhile, to curb the unseasoned indiscriminate dumping of waste in the area, the General Manager mandated the zonal waste managers in the area to register every household that has not been captured in the waste management scheme, stating that anybody resisting such an order would face prosecution without delay.
Speaking also, the Commissioner for Environment and Sustainability, Joshua Omokhodion, who earlier cleared the air and told the people to disregard the rumours that the early morning Monday sanitation by market traders and shop owners will end this month, reassured the residents of the continuous practice of the initiative, which has come to stay.
In his words, Omokhodion said: “It is not true at all. Please discard the statement that today is the last day of the exercise. It is a continuous process. We are currently discussing how to sustain the tempo and the method we are using right now as we have gone beyond just cleaning”.
