Ebonyi Prosecutes 80 For Environmental Offences

No fewer than 80 per
sons were prosecuted on Saturday by the Ebonyi Environmental Court for violating environmental offences during the sanitation exercise in the state.
Offences include travelling, loitering and engaging in recreational activities among others.
The offenders were given jail sentences ranging from two months to one year and options of fines ranging from N2, 000 to N20, 000.
Interacting with newsmen after the monthly sanitation exercise, Mr Omebe Chikere, a Director in the state Environment Ministry, said that the importance of environmental cleanliness could not be over-emphasised.
Chikere said that to ensure overall environmental cleanliness in the state, the government would sustain the on-going refuse evacuation initiative in major cities of the state.
According to him, the new administration in the state is determined to address the state’s numerous environmental challenges.
Chikere said that the state government had already formulated various policies to actualise this objective.
According to him, the contributions of concerned individuals and Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) are noteworthy.
He called on the people to sustain the level of environment awareness they had imbibed, describing the environment as the ‘mirror’ of every state or country.
A resident of Abakaliki, Mrs Chinwe Ezenna, called on the government to sustain the present environmental policies to ensure a remarkable departure from past practices.
“Such policies are only enforced during sanitation exercises and the gains recorded during the exercise are lost because the enforcers of the policies abandon their duties afterwards,” she said.