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 Honorable Minister of the Federal Capital Territory 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 other beautiful countries 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 these 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 II, Maitama, Wuse II and Maitama extension stinks with Garbage all over.
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 so dirty, the laws guiding dumping of refuse are violated, at will and at all times, health facilities bastardized, even school environments are not left out in the dirty business polythene bags littering everywhere.
Catties moving freely in the metropolitan areas of Wuse II, Maitama and Airport road throwing their dungs on the street further causing another environmental problem.
A stitch in time saves nine. Now is the time to act. This is to prevent any outbreak of diseases like Cholera or malaria which will be very devastating and any effort to control the epidemic will be costly.
It will be very important for the Honourable Minister to take an unscheduled visit to Nyanya, Karu, a suburb of Asokoro and drive straight to Jikwoyi and see for yourself.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- An efficient and serious weekly Environmental Sanitation should commence in the whole of the FCT with NSCDC, NPF, and the Military.
- Health Superintendents should be introduced.
- A more reliable contractor should be awarded the contract to evacuate the waste with stringent conditions to be signed.
- AEPB should be trained properly to oversee the activities of these contractors.
- The 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 does its duty efficiently. Failure to do it leads to revocation of the contract.
- The Voluntary group assigned to these dustbins should give a 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 giving to 15 contractors to cover.
- The vehicles carrying this waste should move to the dumpsite from 10pm to 8am as it is done in order developed cities.
- There should be designated dumpsite for this waste. There should be dignity in labour. All these team of unemployed youths should be recruited as sanitary officers who will go house – house and campaign for war against polythene bags that litter our streets. These polythene bags should be recycled or be burnt for good.
- National Orientation Agency should be used in the FCT in sanitizing people on garbage packaging.
- The National Assembly Committee’s on the FCT to tower the city to have a firsthand information on the issue on ground.
CONCLUSION:
This waste will 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.
Our team is ready, willing and able to fund viable projects for the development of FCT and Federal Republic of Nigeria.
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.
AHMED ABUBAKAR GORINGO
