All over the world, the main responsibility of every Government is security; which is to preserve the life and property of the populace. And this security begins by keeping the environment clean so that the citizens can live in conducive homes to contribute their energy to the building of any given society. A healthy society produces able bodied people who put their energy to the disposal of the Leaders who make use of them to develop their society.
In the Bible, God made it clear that cleanliness is next to Godliness. In order words, the Creator knew from the beginning that man must keep his environment clean so as to live long and make contributions to the development of mankind.
Life cannot be sustained without Ecosystem, which includes ants, trees, water, sun, moon, soil, etc. However, it is only the uninformed that does not know that even grasses contribute their quota in making man live a healthy life. A healthy society is a strong one, as only healthy individuals can oil the engine of a given society to its full economic capacity. Therefore heath is wealth.
It was in this regard that the first civilian Governor of Imo State, Dee Sam Mbakwe made a healthy environment the focal point of his leadership thrust .Apart from the fact that Mbakwe made impact in every sector of Imo economy, he took Imo State to the highest level in the area of environmental sanitation in Nigeria.
As growing kids then in Owerri, it was a crime to drop refuse “anyhow” in the Imo State capital city. Through SULO, an environmental sanitation company brought by Mbakwe, Owerri became the cleanest State capital in Nigeria
SULO refuse bins were located at strategic points in each of the streets of Owerri. When the Big bins are full, the Trucks will come and pull them away, and return them immediately after.
Unfortunately, after Mbakwe left office through a Military coup, the succeeding Military Governors sold the Sanitation Company to one of the neighboring States to Imo State. This nefarious act plunged Owerri nay Imo State into refuse capital of Nigeria.
The regime of Senator Evans Enwerem as Governor of Imo State could not last long to be judged whether it would have followed Mbakwe’s steps in the area of environmental sanitation or not.
However, for the eight years the Chief Achike Udenwa administration lasted, he did not bother about the hazard posed to the health of Imo people with the tones of dirts under the gutters and Houses in Owerri.
Then, Imo people were more concerned with the return of Democracy and the various freedom it guaranteed the masses that they forgot that apart from appointments of their relations as Commissioners ,Special Advisers etc, the Government owes the masses the responsibility to provide a healthy environment for everyone to do his /her businesses and wake up the next day healthy.
This was the scenario until the Chief Ikedi Ohakim administration came on board in 2007.Infact, that regime took Environmental Cleanness as its major focus.
In the beginning, Imo masses wondered why a Government should give much priority to cleaning of Gutters, planting of grasses and trees. But the Ohakim administration continued with what it was doing in the state environmentally, until the project started sinking into the psyche of the masses who eventually embraced the project.
Every month end was declared a clean-up day in Imo; a day in which the state is locked-down as no vehicle enters or goes out of the State Capital, Owerri. Local Government Council Chairmen followed suit as communities joined in the exercise which took the Ohakim administration millions of Naira to prosecute.
Before the Ohakim administration could spend four years, the sanitation culture had sunk deep into the Imo Masses, who embraced the sanitation exercise as a way of life. This also inculcated discipline in Imo people.
The sanitation exercise included orderly Traffic, as commuters obeyed Traffic lights and learnt how to park their vehicles in rows to avoid accidents and allow for free flow of Traffic in all the streets in the State capital.
In the spirit of keeping the state capital clean, artisans who operated at undesignated places were given a place at Naze to operate their Trades; Car dealers who displayed vehicles on every corner in Owerri were directed to move to Somachi along Egbu road.
Illegal motor park operators were ordered out of the capital city, which reduced miscreants entering the heart of Owerri. Crime naturally reduced drastically, as the streets were cleared of touts, who must explain what they are doing on major streets of Owerri at late nights.
Imo people suddenly learnt how to make use of side-walks and the roads were left for motorists and their vehicles. Order was restored in Owerri, as Hawkers looked for other trades, leaving the city clean without leftovers from pure water, biscuits, mineral bottles etc. This was the scenario until the present administration assumed office in 2011.
After the first two sanitation exercises carried out by the Govenor Rochas Okorocha’s administration (which was forced down on the administration anyway, as Imo people had already imbibed the exercise) the then Deputy Governor, who also doubled as the Commissioner for Works, Chief Jude Agbaso, told Imo people that the Ohakim administration had been defrauding Imo people on the sanitation exercise, as that regime had been posting outrageous amount as the fund spent on sanitation.
Jude Agbaso assured Imo people that the exercise will not only continue, but would be carried out with a meager amount as against what Ohakim was claiming to clean-up Imo State.
Imo masses waited patiently for not only the continuous exercise and the money that would be saved from it, but the innovations that the current administration would introduce into the sanitary condition of Imo State. Suddenly, the situation degenerated not for good, but for worse.
It became that after the sanitation, Imo people became shocked that the refuse dumps will remain uncleared and block roads for weeks, not only causing health hazard to the masses, but disrupting free flow of Traffic in the state, which never happened during the out-gone Government.
As if that was not enough, Imo people discovered that the monthly environmental exercise which had entered their calendars as a ritual for the last four years was gradually becoming a thing of the past.
Every end of the month, the people will troop out on their own to clean the environment, but they will discover to their chagrin that the Government was nowhere to help them by providing the Trucks to evacuate the hip of refuse dumps piled up on the streets.
After too much frustration from the Government of the day, the masses gave up on sanitation exercise in the State.
After all, was it not the Government that should appeal to the masses to clean up the environments, as part of the major responsibility of a responsible Government to the masses?
This was how the general sanitation exercise which Imo people happily embraced from 2007-2011 died a natural death. Since then, the masses have been begging the Government of Owelle Rochas Okorocha to reintroduce the exercise to no avail.
Since the Okorocha’s administration has refused to clean-up the state, individuals resorted to cleaning their houses and premises, leaving the state capital to suffer odium in the eyes of Nigerians to the scorn of the Governor, who has vehemently refused to talk about healthy environment of Imo state and its citizens.
Recently, the sorry sanitary condition of Imo State Capital, Owerri dominated the air waves, as Imo people get nostalgic of the old days when Owerri was the cynosure of eyes in terms of cleanness.
Many have been wondering why the Okorocha administration has shunned carrying out sanitation in the state ,even after it had said sometime in 2011 that the previous administration was posting humongous amounts as the sum spent on sanitation. In this case, why not the present administration spend less and provide clean environment for Imo masses, who now live at the risk of transmittable diseases?
With the rains on, Imo people have suddenly realized the danger refuse dumps pose to their lives. They have now realized that Governance does not begin and end with roads and block buildings. Life is the most essential to enjoying Government facilities.
An Igbo saying says “He who leaves life to pursue wealth will be surprised that those who live after him will enjoy that wealth” While any administration can be hailed for developing the physical infrastructure of a State, it is more pertinent to note that roads and houses will be used only by healthy people, for a man in the hospital or dead does not enjoy any of those.
It is very unfortunate that Owerri, the Imo state capital which was counted among the cleanest Towns in Nigeria is now the dirtiest in the country.
This is a big minus and failure in the description of the Owelle Rochas Okorocha’s administration. It exposes our shortcomings in the deliverance of services to the masses. Government is not a personal property, but meant to deliver dividends to the majority of people within any society.
Any visitor to Calabar, the Cross River State Capital will realize that health is wealth. It glows on the faces of the people. In Calabar, even if you don’t have anything doing, you can sit under any of the big trees and admire the world, as hours roll pass.
It was Governor Donald Duke who introduced the sanitation exercise in Cross River State, and other Governors followed the trend. Duke has left office for years now, but it is the people of Calabar and those who visit the town that are enjoying that innovation.
But not so in Imo State .Everybody had hoped that even if Governor Okorocha throws away all the policies of his predecessors, he would not jettison the environmental exercise, because it was a healthy project that touched all Imo citizens in the positive.
But due to politics, Okorocha threw the noble exercise away. Imagine how Imo State would have been today had the Okorocha regime sustained the clean and Green policy of the past regime by giving it another name?
Now illegal parks are everywhere, trees planted by past administrations are being pulled down, Hawkers are in every corner, vulcunizers are back inside town, vehicle sellers display them everywhere in Owerri, grasses and walk ways constructed by past administrations with Imo State money are being destroyed.
Unfortunately, the Okorocha administration has suddenly woken up by demolishing illegal structures, may be because he will not face the Imo electorate again.
Most of those illegal structures dislodged in 2011 by the last administration had resettled themselves elsewhere, and returned to vent their venom on the administration during the 2011 as a pay back. But Okorocha allowed them to return only to begin to sack them now that the economy is too bad.
Soon, Owerri will be over-run with criminals looking for what to eat, as they have been thrown out on the streets, without alternative means of survival.
The next few years will be tough for the Okorocha administration because he has created enemies for his administration now even though he is not going to ask for their votes again.
It is unfortunate that a Government which refused to hear the call of Imo people to continue the sanitation exercise in 2011 has suddenly woken up now, with massive demolition of structures which mainly belongs to the down trodden of the state, who saw Okorocha as their savior, and massively stood behind him during election periods. What goes around comes around.
Had Okorocha sustained the sanitation exercise since 2011, Owerri nay Imo would have been rated one of the finest states in Nigeria today. But the reverse is the case, as Okorocha gets set to tackle one of the hardest tasks the previous administration had already executed for him, only for the Governor to turn back the hand of the clock.
