AEPB And Efforts To Keep FCT Clean

As part of efforts to ensure the cleanliness of Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) was set up in 1990 to undertake waste management and other environmental protection activities in the territory.

The current FCT Administration (FCTA), headed by Sen. Bala Mohammed, has initiated some policies and programmes to keep Abuja clean and shore up its image as a modern and cosmopolitan city.

In 2011, for instance, several measures were adopted by the FCTA to promote the cleanliness of Abuja and some of the measures include the removal of hawkers from the city, the prohibition of prostitution and street begging, as well as the compulsory monthly sanitation exercise.

The monthly sanitation exercise has been widely adjudged by many observers as a potent tool of keeping the FCT clean but the AEPB has repeatedly complained about the low turnout of residents for the monthly cleanup activities.

Several times last year, the AEPB reiterated the need for FCT residents to take the monthly environmental sanitation seriously and participate fully in it, so as to ensure the cleanliness of the territory.

Mr Amos Odufa, the Chairman of AEPB’s Sanitation Committee, particularly made the call at a stakeholders’ interactive session on environmental sanitation in Abuja last August.

He lamented that the monthly sanitation exercise, which was usually undertaken on the last Saturday of every month, had been recording a low turnout of residents.

Odufa, nonetheless, said that the Board had initiated a policy which would empower officials to inspect houses during the exercise so as to ensure the maximum cooperation of the residents.

He, however, expressed the hope that residents would not have to be forced out of their houses to partake in the cleanup of their surroundings, stressing that the exercise was partly aimed at averting the outbreak of diseases in the territory.

“We want to appeal very strongly to FCT residents to know that the cleaning of our environment is our individual responsibility, in the sense that we are doing it to protect ourselves and our families.

“The world is a global village and any nuisance we create in our environment will affect others in their own environment,” he said.

Odufa called on security personnel to assist the board by enforcing the restriction placed on people’s movement during the exercise.

As part of efforts to remove illegal dumpsites in the city centre and the area councils, the FCT Minister of State, Ms Olajumoke Akinjide, came up with a programme tagged “Clean and Green Greater Abuja’’ and the project entailed a one-month intensive cleanup of the city.

Akinjide stressed that the cleanliness of the satellite towns in the FCT would be a benchmark for assessing the service delivery of the area councils.

She, nonetheless, said that the initiative was to mobilise all the residents of the FCT to embark on tree planting, while establishing woodlots and combating bush burning during the dry season.

The minister pledged the determination of the FCTA to meet the needs of FCT residents without necessarily jeopardising the interests of future generations.

“Improper waste management, as well as the unsanitary conditions of our surroundings have been undermining our efforts to create a healthy, congenial and tourism-friendly city.

“Our goal of attracting investments and making Abuja a global tourism destination will remain a lip service if our intentions are not matched with a culture of cleanliness, conservation and greening,” she said.

Akinjide said that in line with President Goodluck Jonathan’s transformation agenda, the FCTA was determined to confront the challenges facing efforts to ensure the sanitation of the territory.

She said that the administration had embarked on massive infrastructure development in the area councils, adding that this was being executed gradually to enhance the quality of the infrastructure of satellite towns.

Akinjide said that the project would ensure the transformation of area councils into good places to work, invest, live in and nurture the young.

The minister stressed that a strategy was being worked out to build an effective institutional framework, which would ensure sustainability, community participation and ownership of the project.

She, however, warned that the FCTA would not take over the environmental sanitation of communities in the area councils, adding that it would only collaborate with them in that regard.

Akinjide urged union leaders, traditional rulers, parents and the media to brace to the challenges of cleaning and greening their neighbourhoods to avert possible outbreaks of epidemic and natural disasters.

Besides, the former Director of AEPB, Dr Abubarkar Yabo, said that the Board was facing a lot of challenges, especially with regard to the apathy of residents towards the payment of bills for services rendered by the Board.

Yabo conceded that the cleaning of Abuja was a difficult task which required a lot of funds to ensure its sustainability.

“Keeping the city clean is very difficult; we need a lot of revenue to ensure its sustainability and the residents are not ready to pay their bills,” he said.

He said that AEPB was collaborating with the six area councils of the FCT to ensure the cleanliness of the satellite towns.

Yabo stressed that the Board had embarked on a public enlightenment campaign via radio, television and newspapers to educate the public on the importance of keeping their surroundings clean.

He said that AEPB had been handling the cleanout of Abuja’s drainage and the sewage systems to prevent the city from being flooded during rainy seasons.

He, nonetheless, stressed the need for the residents to acquire customized AEPB waste bins to guard against indiscriminate dumping of refuse.

Yabo attributed most of the board’s waste-evacuation difficulties to the non-compliance of residents with extant waste-disposal regulations which underscored the use of the waste bins.

“The problem is that people dump their refuse indiscriminately on the ground. So, we often find it difficult to handle the garbage during evacuation periods,” he said.

Yabo reiterated that the AEPB Act made it compulsory for every house in Abuja to have waste disposal bins.

He warned that the Board was determined to ensure proper waste management in Abuja, warning that residents who contravened environmental laws would be prosecuted.

He, however, noted that 20 companies had been contracted to clean the city daily and evacuate waste from designated places for proper disposal.

“We collect garbage three times a week on the average but for the commercial areas, we evacuate waste on a daily basis,” he said.

He, however, said that 95 per cent of AEPB’s revenue was derived through enforcement activities and urged residents to promptly pay their bills so as to enable the Board to give effective service delivery.

Yabo called on residents to beware of touts who paraded themselves around the city as AEPB employees.

All the same, observers commend AEPB for its efforts to remove hawkers and beggars from the major streets of Abuja, as well as for recruiting more personnel into its taskforce.

They note that until recently, in neighbourhoods like Wuse where the city’s main market is located, hawkers, beggars and hoodlums were having a leeway in conducting their business which defaced the environment.

In spite of the fact that efforts to keep Abuja sparkling clean have so far proved abortive, the appointment of Mr Isa Shuiabu as the Director of AEPB in October last year boosted efforts to rid Abuja of the menace of hawkers and beggars.

In his determination to keep hawkers off the city, Shuiabu held some discussions with the executive officers of the traders’ associations and urged roadside hawkers to move into the area councils.

He stressed the need to enforce the urban planning measures put in place for Abuja as Nigeria’s capital city, reiterating that hawking would not be tolerated within the city.

“Abuja is the city of government where things are planned for the administration of this country,’’ he added.

Shuiabu stressed that the evacuation of hawkers from the city involved all kinds of street trading, including bicycle hawking and phone recharge cards’ cubicles.

He emphasised that there was no dignity in hawking, adding that the lives of hawkers were rather endangered, while they constituted a menace to the environment.

“It is better for one to live in a place where one can claim his or her rights instead of living as vagabonds on the street with the fear of being pursued day and night,’’ he said.

Shuiabu, however, solicited the cooperation of the hawkers, vowing that his administration would apply some force if they failed to relocate from the city at the end of the deadline given to them.

He stressed that as part of efforts to forestall the re-emergence of the menace of hawkers and beggars in Abuja, the AEPB in November 2011 recruited 300 personnel into the Board’s enforcement squads so as to enforce extant sanitation rules.

Uche Bibilari