A Mobile Court in
Fugar, in the Etsako-Central Local Government Area of Edo, last Saturday convicted 63 offenders for violating the environmental sanitation law.
The presiding judge, Mr Lawrence Wilson, ordered that the accused persons should be in prison for seven days or pay a fine of N5, 000 each, in the alternative.
However, the judge said the convicts should pay the fine within seven days, after which they might be committed to prison.
“After reviewing the facts of the cases before me. I hereby convict you all with an option of N5, 000 fine each, which you must pay within seven days or go to jail.
“Your claims that you people were not aware of the environmental sanitation law is not an excuse, because every last Saturday of the month is the sanitation exercise.
“I am only sentencing you with an option of N5, 000 fine each, because you all pleaded guilty to the charge,’’ he said.
Earlier, the prosecutor, Mr Pius Sule, told the court that the offenders were found loitering during the sanitation exercise.
Sule, who is the Asst. Chief Environmental Health Officer of Etsako-Central local government, urged the court to punish the culprits, to serve as a deterrent to others.
He said that their offences contravened Section 12, Sub-section 2, of the Edo State Sanitation Law, 1976.
The Supervisor for Health and Environment, Mr Emma Aludo, said that the exercise was a success due to the enlightenment campaigns by the council on the need to observe the exercise.
Aludo said that the sanitation became necessary to forestall flood and keep the environment clean, for healthy living.