Edith CHUKU
Stakeholders of Eneka Community in the Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State, have called for the immediate evacuation of refuse dumped beside the Community Health Center.
They also called for an end to dumping of refuse in the area, lamenting that it was defacing the environment and causing great harm to the health of infants, mothers, patients and staff of the hospital.
The Eneka stakeholders further called on the Rivers State government, the local government authority, to as a matter of urgency, provide an alternative dump site for residents and always ensure timely evacuation of waste.
Speaking in an interview with TNN on Saturday, the Director General of Eneka Today, Mr Maxwell Onuma, said the stench is horrible, and that rats, flies and mosquitoes have taken over the environment.
He vehemently condemned the act by business owners and residents, explaining that formerly refuse were heaped infront of the civic center, later moved to the community primary school 1 and now, beside the health center, expressing worry that patients in the hospital would suffer more of malaria because of the mosquitoes.
His words, “this is condemnable, it is not good and we call for immediate evacuation. It is quite unfortunate that government of Rivers State have not provided designated dump site for Eneka Community, there is none.
“Sometime ago, last year, they started dumping refuse opposite my office at the state primary school and we raised concern, alot of concern through various channels to get government attention.
“We had to get to the CDC of that time; Mr Chima Wosu, because they didn’t want people to dump refuse at the civic center but somehow we contacted the local government sanitation authority and they came.
“We told them that the health of the students are already endangered, children can’t be learning in such environment, so considering the life of the students, they stopped it but there was no alternative dump site.
“You know human beings will always want to use an open space to dump refuse which begins with a drop of refuse, gradually. So if a health center which is supposed to catter for the health of community people and those outside the community allow people to begin to dump refuse, it’s disheartening, something has to be done about it.
“This is where people that are ill come for treatment which their immune system are not strong, they could easily contact air borne disease, malaria through mosquito bites.”
Describing the act as discouraging and harmful, the DG insisted that, “this act must be discouraged through the government institution which is the health center. The health center should write, then the Eneka Town Council through the sanitation committee should bring this act to stop.”
The authority of the day, both the local government and the community authority should find a way to stop it. The local government can work with the community government.
“The local government has agency that works for them as sanitation committee, they can engage the community committee on sanitation to provide a designated area outside the health facility.
“Another thing again, not just providing alternative waste dump site but government should also be quick to evacuate refuse wherever it is been designated, so, it also falls on the state government to do that but it begins with getting a dump site.”
