The Minister who spoke today as he flagged off the Households and Community based sanitation exercise at Kurudu, a suburb of Abuja, in the Abuja Municipal Area Council said that one of the causes is that the society and relevant institutions have not been carrying out their statutory responsibilities professionally and diligently.
The Minister said that another cause is Town Planners and other professionals involved in city planning have not been doing the planning well by providing spaces to dump refuse to prevent people from dumping refuse by the road side or road dividers.
According to Muhammad Musa Bello, the daily dirty habits of the people and lack of effective enforcement have contributed immensely to the poor sanitary condition.
He made it clear that the society has roles to play to keep the environment clean and to ensure the maintenance of the green.
“Unless we tackle all these and change our attitude, we would continue to flounder in dirty which of course is unacceptable to his Administration.”
The Minister charged the residents in the Abuja Municipal Area Council to be exceptionally clean for the reason that the Council hosts the Federal Capital City where the President, members of the National Assembly and members of the diplomatic corps reside.
“If any Area Council could afford to be dirty then certainly it is not AMAC. The ‘Clean and Green’ exercise is unique in its totality as it carries two messages at once, cleaning and greening.”
Speaking earlier, the Minister of Environment, Hajiya Amina Mohammed who was represented at the occasion by the Director of Special Duties in the Ministry, Engr. Okunnu Otosin Kehinde expressed happiness over the collaboration of FCTA with the Federal Ministry of Environment on “Environmental Sanitation” to ensure the provision of clean environment for healthy living in the Territory, and assured of her strong commitment to make the collaboration sustainable.
The Minister stressed that environment of filths and dirt constitutes so much public health hazards to the people and therefore called for concerted efforts to rid our habitats of dirt.
Welcoming guests to the occasion, the Chairman of the Abuja Municipal Area Council, Mr. Micah Jiba thanked the Minister for introducing the Household and Community Sanitation exercise; adding that it would go a long way to reduce incidences of avoidable diseases in the Territory. [myad]
