Garbage or waste in any society is an embarrassing and disturbing issue especially as a continental capital like Abuja. Abuja by all means is the seat of power to the Federal Republic of Nigeria and as the giant of Africa, Abuja portrays the image of the African continent. This, therefore, is the biggest priority of the Minister of the Federal Capital Development Authority(FCDA) to keep Abuja clean so that all visitors and investors will have a comfortable stay in the city. It is not only to keep Abuja clean but, so clean that it can meet with the international best practice.
Abuja should be compared with Paris, Dubai and other beautiful cities in the world.
Unfortunately, today, everywhere you go in the city, what you hear is “Abuja stinks”. One will wonder whether the Authorities concerned have no institution to deal with this dirt’s.
The Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB), an institution saddled with the responsibility of keeping the city clean is only busy chasing hawkers and commercial motorcycle riders as if they don’t have a mission or target.
It is so embarrassing today that even the high-brow areas of Abuja like Asokoro, Garki 2, Maitama, Wuse 2 and Maitama extension are littered with Garbage and manholes filled with trash.
Also read: FMBN’s new banking system aims at improving housing delivery
Understanding the value of building relationships in real estate business
The worst is when you go to the Satellite cities of the FCT like Nyanya, Karu, Jikwoyi, Kurudu, Lugbe, Kuje and Gwagwalada. The environments are littered with waste materials like sachet water bags, plastic bottles, polyten bags etc, the laws guiding the dumping of refuse are violated, at will, people are not scared when violating such laws and carry out such act at any time of the day.
Health facilities and school environments are not left out in being dirty and littered with polythene bags.
Cattles moving freely in the metropolitan areas of Wuse 2, Maitama and Airport road, littering the street with dungs, thereby creating another form of environmental and air pollution hazard.
Also read:Reason to invest in real estate/property business
A stitch in time saves nine. Now is the time to act in other to prevent any more outbreak of diseases that we have experienced and still experiencing such as Covid-19, cholera and malaria. Efforts in controlling the pandemic/epidemic will go a long way.
It is important that the Honorable Minister go on an unscheduled visit to Nyanya, a suburb of Asokoro and drive straight to Jikwoyi and see things for himself.
Viewpoint Housing Media recommends an efficient and dedicated weekly Environmental Sanitation be introduced in every area of the FCT with NSCDC, NPF, the military and the sanitization officers, the introduction of Health Superintendents, more reliable contractors should be awarded the contract in the evacuation of waste materials with stringent conditions that will be signed.
Also read: Dirty environments are threats to the lives of Nigerians
Also AEPB should be trained properly in overseeing the activities of these contractors. Sanitization officers or voluntary groups should be attached to every dustbin to ensure proper disposal and at the same time ensure that the vehicle or company that is assigned for a particular waste disposal does its duty efficiently and failure to do it leads to revocation of the contract.
The Voluntary group assigned to these dustbins should be expected to give daily report. Contractors should be awarded to cover one electoral ward each; i.e 10 contractors to every Area Council and AMAC which is the largest and most prominent should be given to 15 contractors to handle.
The vehicles carrying this waste should move to the dumpsite from 10pm to 5am as it is done in order developed countries. Thereby creating designated dumpsite for the waste products. There should be dignity in labour, unemployed youths should be recruited as sanitary officers that will go from one house to another, campaigning for war against polythene bags that litter our streets. These polythene bags should be recycled or be burnt immediately after use.
Also read: Indiscriminate erection of speed bumps in katampe extension
These waste products include high – value metals and fibres to organic material and other waste. FCT should think of ways of turning this waste to wealth. There should be a landfill receiving facility (LRF) and a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) that takes waste and recyclable from commercial, Residential and other sources and processes them for further refinement.
The MRF will process the majority of the contents and create recyclables for sale. Organic and certain other waste may be diverted for conversion into heat, energy, chemical sugars or other materials at the Bio-Refinery.
Leftover waste that may not be processed will likely be dumped at a landfill. However, depending on the size of a recycling facility on any given site, landfill may also be mined for their existing waste, creating even more revenue and helping alleviate pollution.
With actualization of the above prospect, it will eliminate environmental hazard in the FCT, create sustainable economic growth and enormous employment.
This is a step to the development of the “Renewable Readiness Assessment” (RRA) as a comprehensive tool for assessing key conditions for renewable energy technology development and deployment in the FCT.
