Emir calls for return of sanitary inspectors

The emir made the call at the inauguration of the 3rd Governing Board of Environmental Health Officers Registration Council of Nigeria (EHORECON) in Abuja on Monday.The emir said the return of this critical set of professionals will ensure environmental safety and lead to cleaner environment nationwide. He also called for the establishment of an environmental sanitation […]

The emir made the call at the inauguration of the 3rd Governing Board of Environmental Health Officers Registration Council of Nigeria (EHORECON) in Abuja on Monday.
The emir said the return of this critical set of professionals will ensure environmental safety and lead to cleaner environment nationwide.
 He also called for the establishment of an environmental sanitation commission that will be extended to the states and local governments.
He said: “I want to hear in the next council that the federal ministry of environment has fully staffed directorate of environmental health which will be a model for states and local governments to copy, and a fully staffed environmental sanitation commission centrally controlled but with activity in all local governments and wards in Nigeria,” he said.
 Speaking at the event, the Minister of Environment, Mrs. Laurentia Mallam, said the inauguration was timely considering the efforts to improve in various components of environmental health which is of utmost concern to the public.
 She said environmental sanitary inspectors as officers on the frontline of the battle for environmental protection must be re-established by government to meet the need for improving environmental quality.
 According to her, the impact of the environmental health officers in the early 50s and 60s were seen in the eradication of communicable diseases such as yaws, plague and small pox, while diseases such as cholera, malaria and typhoid were kept at bay.
“The older generation of Nigerians still remember with nostalgia the effectiveness of the then Sanitary Inspector called Dubagari, Nwole-ala and Wole-wole in Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba languages, respectively, and still clamour for the re-introduction of the cadre in our various communities in order to restore environmental sanity into such communities,” she said.
She urged the council to uphold high level of discipline and focus on the bigger picture of delivering high quality service to Nigerians, saying: “I want you to carry out full investigation and ensure that integrity is the watch word of practitioners and any person no matter how highly placed found to have compromised should be sanctioned in line with the code of professional ethics guiding the profession.”