No to Environmental Sanitation Day

Two weeks ago, on these pages, in a piece we entitled A passionate Appeal to Buhari: ‘Go back to your first love’, we advocated, among others, that President Muhammadu Buhari should re-launch the war against environmental uncleanliness which was one of the good things he did in his first coming as military leader of this […]

Two weeks ago, on these pages, in a piece we entitled A passionate Appeal to Buhari: ‘Go back to your first love’, we advocated, among others, that President Muhammadu Buhari should re-launch the war against environmental uncleanliness which was one of the good things he did in his first coming as military leader of this country some 30 years ago. Four days ago, the Federal Ministry of Environment gave notice that the Federal Government will soon bring back the National Environmental Sanitation Day. Whether our advocacy had anything to do with the latest thinking in government or it is a case of mere coincidence, is not very important. What is, is that the federal government under this change administration has realized the need to pay greater attention to the challenge of our inability to keep our homes, markets, schools and other public places clean for aesthetic and health reasons.
However, while we enthusiastically welcome the remembrance of an old good initiative, we will not welcome the designation of a particular day, most likely a Saturday, as the National Environmental Sanitation Day as was the practice when Buhari was military head of state. From experience, designating one day in a month as the day every Nigerian should pay especial attention to cleaning our homes and the general environment will be counterproductive.
One, from experience, people will not usually come out to clean the places that need to be cleaned. It will just be an opportunity for people to be caged, so to say, for say three hours, to remain in the comfort of their beds, waiting patiently for the hours designated for the exercise to expire so they can go out and do ‘better’ other things.
Two, such a restriction will amount to a complete lockdown of the country when nothing substantial will be achieved. It, of course, needs no stating to say that the effect of such a massive shut down will be deleterious on the economy. We cannot afford the loss of billions of man-hours that should have been put to productive use in support of the economy.
Three, it will give the otherwise good idea of paying greater attention to our environment a very bad name. It will, in addition, give ammunition to some of the President’s critics who are always suspicious of his military and authoritarian background to say that this self-acclaimed born- again democrat has come again. That he has returned to his old ways of violating the human rights of citizens.
Four, when the need for national sanitation is made a once-a- month affair, governmental authorities who are responsible for evacuating the mountains of waste usually accumulated during the exercise would be overwhelmed and will therefore allow such wastes to constitute another form of nuisance as detestable as the former dirt in the environment. Some of the refuse evacuated from drainage channels and heaped nearby will again be washed back to re-block the drains. The waste mountains will themselves become convenient spots for rodents, insects and other harmful vectors of deadly viruses of Lassa and malaria fevers.
If Minister Amina Mohammed and her environment ministry will be the ones to drive this laudable initiative, they should not copy and paste what took place over 30 years ago which no doubt created awareness but which many considered was not very effective in delivering to us a clean environment for human habitation.
A new cleanliness initiative should not be a monthly, weekly or quarterly event. We should aim at making sanitation a daily affair, a lived experience of our people. We should seek to inculcate in all Nigerians the habit of cleanliness. And the best way to do it is the return of sanitation police who used to be called sanitary inspectors who will daily visit homes, markets, food vending outlets to ensure that Nigerians internalize the virtues of cleanliness. A governmental agency should be set up to ensure that our dwellings are divided into districts, areas, neighbourhoods and streets for effective supervision. Residents should be required to clean roads and streets, drainage channels, parks and centres while the authorities will provide refuse bins for each household to deposit their waste which will now be carried to a dumpsite for eventual sorting and incineration of those that cannot be turned into wealth.
I will suggest that the motto for a new sanitation war in Nigeria should be the old wisdom that if every man cleans his frontage and backstage, the whole village, town and nation will be clean. Ensuring sanitation is something that everyone, whether rich or poor, powerful or powerless can be left out for the negligence of your neighbour can have a very negative impact on you as well. Anyone who is caught violating environmental rules should be quickly and fairly dealt with and that will send a message to all and sundry that change has finally come.
The role I expect the Federal Government to play in the war against unsanitary Nigeria is to set aside a National Environmental Sanitation Day strictly to give awards to households, streets, neighbourhoods, districts, local government areas and states that have emerged the cleanest in a national cleanliness competition that is instituted for that purpose. The Federal Government should not itself be directly involved in the cleanliness exercise but should be a motivator-in-chief in the matter. We live in a competitive society and if a competition is put in place for a noble cause such as we are talking about, there will surely be an enthusiastic response. The awards should have good prize money that will really motivate citizens to take part in the competition.
As argued earlier, a sanitation day should not be a day to hold Nigerians captive in their homes but one to raise awareness about the importance of the environment and to reward those who have rightly responded to the national call.