FG, NGO To Launch New Centenary Environment Campaign

The Federal Government in
collaboration with the Environmental Safety Corps (ESCORP), an NGO, says it would launch a centenary sanitation and hygiene campaign nationwide.
A statement by ESCORP’s Coordinator, Mr Emenike Eme, said in Abuja that the campaign was aimed at reviving and sustaining good hygiene practices.
The statement said the first phase of the 100-year campaign to be launched on Monday would target all Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
It said the campaign would be embarked upon with the office of the Special Adviser to the President on Ethics and Values and the Environmental Health Officers Registration Council of Nigeria (EHORECON).
“The overall objective of the campaign is to help raise the standard and sustainability of environmental ethics, sanitation and hygiene in work places.
“It will raise sanitation awareness through such advocacy as it will encourage workers to willingly maintain the cleanliness of their work places as well as the safety of facilities.
“We will achieve this through the domestication of ‘autonomous morality’ rather than viewing these matters as the sole responsibility of government,’’ the statement said.
It said the programme for the campaign would be done under the technical guidance and leadership of environmental health officers in Nigeria.
The highlights of the event, it said, would include sanitary and safety inspection of facilities within and outside the premises of the MDAs, environmental ethics and safety enlightenment.
It will also include the assessment of compliance level by different MDAs and project reports to the honourable Minister of Environment and other relevant bodies.
According to the statement, the theme of the campaign is “Be Ethical, Be Centenary Clean’’.
“Clean environment is paramount to achieving the Vision 20:2020 and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), especially the seventh target of the goals.
“If the environment is filthy and people are sick, it will be impossible to achieve the target and other development goals”, he said.
ESCORP is an organized corps of environmental foot-soldiers inaugurated on August 27, 2013 to fill the gap between Nigeria’s environmental policies.