Board Advocates Sanitation Clubs

The Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEBP) says organising sanitation clubs is the best strategy to instil good hygiene and sanitation consciousness in people.

Mr Ahmad Abubakar, the Head, Environmental Health Department of the Board, made this known in an interview with The Tide on Thursday in Abuja.

According to Abubakar, enlightenment is ongoing in many neighbourhoods in the metropolis on the essence of establishing these clubs in the FCT.

He argued that the enforcement of sanitation laws should be more participatory and incorporate awareness creation, rather than being forceful.

“What we need is participatory enforcement. We want people to understand what we are talking about; so we are now trying to establish this environmental sanitation clubs within neighbourhoods.

“We will create a forum that will be going from district to district, sitting with people and educating them because our activities are environmentally friendly,’’ he said.

He said neighbourhood participation and involvement was necessary to the quest for a healthy environment, stressing that this approach would achieve greater results.

Abubakar said that the sanitation clubs would be extended to markets to arouse the consciousness of traders about noise pollution and its effects on the people and the environment.

“If we find out a noisy market situation that is not acceptable, we get the traders together and educate them not to misuse their strength.

“They can conserve the energy for other positive activities instead of shouting,’’ he added.

According to him, the board is re-visiting this method because it had proved useful in the past.

Also, in order to achieve the board’s mandate of prompt waste disposal, he said a new method had been adopted which involved the distribution of waste bins to neighbourhoods with an agreement of payment at a later time.

“We want every household to have waste bins; so we go to neighbourhoods, serve them notice, then look for the block chairman and handover the waste bins to him.

“The chairman will be responsible for the collection of the money for the bins.’’