Owerri as a slum city By Kola Oyelere
Friday, February 23, 2007

Joe Nwachukwu assesses the drift in the level of cleanliness of Owerri, the capital city of Imo State, highlighting efforts being made by the state government and individuals to curb the trend.

Some refuse collectors clearing refuse from a dump site

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Considering the role of hygiene and clean environment, medical experts believe that cleanliness is next to godliness. A clean environment keeps healthy people and a healthy people makes a strong and virile nation. This seems not a point considered very seriously in Imo State by both state and local governments. Hence, the total collapse of all health and environmental policies of the government.

This is clearly evidenced by the filth in every nook and crannies of the state capital, which hitherto earned itself an award as the cleanness state capital in Nigeria during the administration of civilian government, led by Chief Sam Mbakwe. This situation is very worrying. Some medical experts in the state have in several fora raised alarm over the impending danger of the filth all over the state capital.

According to these medical experts, apart from the embarrassing refuse that litters the place, which also block the drainage system in the state capital, this unclean environment does not present a good identity for the state and local governments said to be responsible to the people. In most countries, outgoing administrations endeavour to bequeath to the populace favourable and lasting legacies.

In the case of Imo State, health experts and environmentalists are wishing that the out-going administration in the state does not bequeath to the Imo people a filthy looking environment. Rather, they are expecting a very clean environment that will not only impress the people, but would also attract tourists.

They appealed to the state government to do something urgent to make the Owerri municipal council, led by Vincent Ehirim, to rise up to its responsibility of keeping tidy the environment of state capital so that people passing the streets of Owerri will no longer be covering their noses as a result of bad odour from the unclean gutters. The problem of drainage blocks in the city of Owerri is caused mainly by the illegal motor parks that are scattered all over metropolitan city .

The travellers, while waiting for vehicles, decide to buy sachet water to cool their thirst. As a result of that, the empty sachet water proofs are dropped inside the gutters. A survey carried out in all the motor parks at Owerri indicated that empty sachets of “pure water” covered all these gutters around the motor parks. Worried about this empty sachets that are scattered all over the gutters in Owerri, Imo State government, through its environmental sanitation agency, built small containers mounted in strategic positions in the state capital.

According to the Nigerian Tribune findings, the small refuse containers did not last up to one week before they disappeared from the streets and roads in Owerri. This ugly development has continued to worry the state government on how to find the solution to this problem before leaving office in May this year. Sometimes, the landlords and their tenants would clean the gutters and heaps at the edges of the main roads without parking them out of the roads. After a heavy down pour, the refuse get back to the gutters once more.

All efforts made by the Owerri Municipal Council, including the state government, to remove these illegal motor parks proved abortive. One begins to wonder whether the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and other related transport unions are greater than the government. In the same vein, since about one year now, state government has been making series of efforts to inject timber market at Wetheral Road, but to no avail .

The state government has built another market for the timber traders at Naze, near Owerri, to enable them evacuate their sheds. Nigerian Tribune investigations revealed that the timber traders are demanding that unless government provides them with all the necessary social amenities like pipe borne water, electricity, good roads and other necessary amenities, they would not leave their wetheral stores.

Posters of political office seekers that are pasted all over the city also add to this problem. This is unlike the situation in Cross River State where aspirants seeking political offices are directed to build only bill boards. This decision was taken because the Cross River State government discovered that posters make the city untidy. The Imo State government should take a cue from Cross River State government on sanitation.

Chief Achike Udenwa, governor of Imo State, once told political office seekers that posters scattered in all corners of streets and roads would not help them win elections. He said: “winning election comes from God. The number of posters one has printed and pasted can not make one win an election”. Here in Imo State, any political aspirant that has no poster will not be regarded as a serious aspirant, hence each aspirant tries to print as many as he can to show his supporters that he has arrived.