All hail the cleaning governors

One of the most heartening sights I’ve seen in recent days, was the published photo of the executive governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal along with his deputy and His Eminence the Sultan of Sokoto, participating in an environmental clean-up exercise. I felt a similar kind of joy, a few months ago, when my […]

One of the most heartening sights I’ve seen in recent days, was the published photo of the executive governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal along with his deputy and His Eminence the Sultan of Sokoto, participating in an environmental clean-up exercise. I felt a similar kind of joy, a few months ago, when my former colleague Halilu Ibrahim Dantiye, replied my congratulatory text message by saying that was he with Governor Abdullahi Ganduje’s entourage trying to keep Kano clean when I texted him earlier. Then some days ago, Governor Tanko Al-Makura was shown around the rubbish heaps of Mararaba, obviously trying to find a way to deal with them.
These three instances are highly commendable executive interventions into the deplorable environmental sanitation scourge that is plaguing our nation. Almost every state in our nation suffers from this menace.
I often wonder how we got to the position whereby living in dirt, became the norm rather than an aberration. I still recall that when we were growing up there were designated refuse dumps in every ward and people didn’t go about disposing of their refuse, indiscriminately, at every available space.
Today when you drive down certain streets in Kano, half of the street is overtaken by refuse. In even less fortunate parts of the metropolis, even the two sides of the streets have rubbish heaps littering them. Motorists and pedestrians have to make their way through the mountain of dirt to pass by. Similar hideous sights can certainly be found in other states of our federation. Whenever I come across such areas I often find myself wondering whether there is no one in authority who is charged with the sole responsibility of stopping this potentially dangerous situation.
I also wonder where the councilors and local government chairmen are that the environment is allowed to get so dirty. As the officials at the level of government closest to the people, we expect them to care.
In parts of the world where maintaining a clean environment is a top priority, the local government head is the one in charge of street-cleaning and beautification.
Here in Nigeria, even the monthly environmental sanitation exercise stipulated in many states is only observed in the breach, because people only remain indoors till 10am every month-end Saturday, without necessarily lifting a finger to clean up their mess. These executive governors’ intervention is a huge welcome relief because it will inspire people to come out and keep their environment clean.
The fact that Governor Tambuwal has promised to give a million naira award every month to the cleanest local government area is an incentive that will keep some of them on their toes in order to keep their areas clean. But more than this monetary inducement, there should be a concerted media campaign to enlighten the people to embrace domestic and environmental cleanliness. They should be made aware of the health hazards of living in dirt. Religious and community leaders must make it a regular duty to preach about cleanliness, especially making the point that cleanliness is next to godliness or to put it as Rasulillah SAW said ‘Cleanliness is half of faith.’
Again the government must work on providing properly-built and covered drainages to enable the free flow of liquid waste and prevent floods after rainfall. This will also save us from the disgusting sight of open gutters, which has been a common feature of our urban areas nationwide.
Another important area of priority, if government is serious about cleaning up the environment is the provision of water.  When both rural and urban dwellers go through a lot of trouble before water can be sourced, be sure the priority is to cook with and drink the water rather than clean up the home and its environs. Adequate and potable water must therefore be provided to the common man before he could be expected to embrace holistic cleanliness.
For now we must hail the efforts of Governors Tambuwal, Ganduje and Al-Makura, for personally rising up to the task of cleaning up their states but to keep the spirit of the campaign alive , they must keep doing this exercise regularly, for a long time to come. This is the only way to keep the people interested. And a little enforcement will do no harm if the aim is to get people doing what is right. Therefore all states genuinely in pursuit of environmental hygiene must enact laws that must be obeyed in order to keep the environment clean.
Appropriate punishment must be meted out to offenders especially in the form of fine.
We all know that prevention is better than cure, it is only by diligently pursuing environmental sanitation that we can keep annually-recurring diseases like cholera, meningitis and others at bay. We must hail these governors for leading the way.