By Raymond Ozoji, Awka
The Operation Clean and Healthy Anambra State (Ocha-Brigade) says it has ended open defecation and open urination in Onitsha, one of the biggest commercial cities in the world.
Speaking to HEADLINE NEWS in Onitsha, one of the Coordinators of the agency enforcing environmental cleanliness between Boromeo Roundabout down to Head Bridge Onitsha, Uga junction and Ogbaru Local Government Area, Mr. Ejike Odife, said Ocha-Brigade has won the war against indiscipline and culture of impunity in Onitsha.
Odife stated that prior to the emergence of Ocha-Brigade, all the gutters and drainages in Onitsha were completely messed up with faeces and people urinating indiscriminately in public without recourse to air pollution and other environmental hazards posed by their actions.
He said that for instance at Ogbo-Ogwu Bridge Head Onitsha, marketers urinated openly into the gutters coupled with heaps and heaps of faeces deposited in the gutters which constituted dire environmental health hazards.
He however heaved a sigh of relief that Ocha-Brigade has achieved 80% sanity in the area with the clamping down of people who indulged in open defecation and open urination.
Odife also made it categorically clear that open urination and defecation are banned all over the world including Nigeria where it is equally gazetted in the National Environmental Law.
He said open urination and defecation could breed diseases like cholera, typhoid and a host of other killer ailments as water and edible substances could be contaminated through such unhealthy practices.
He added that human effluence on the environment could result to chronic waterborne diseases like cholera, which according to him, is why Ocha-Brigade is arresting people who deface the environment with open urination and defecation.
Odife emphasized that offenders are quarantined for close psychiatric examinations as he observed that it is only an insane person that would bring out his manhood to urinate in public glare.
Odife equally informed that they have mobile courts where offenders are prosecuted and subjected to fines or community service.
Although he mentioned that they encountered a number of challenges in the course of enforcements as he pointed out that politicians, government officials, security agents and highly placed individuals intercepted their duties with intermittent phone calls requesting release of their relatives who flouted environmental laws.
Odife however commended the Managing Director of the Operation Clean and Healthy Anambra (Ocha-Brigade) Mr. Celestine Anere whom he described as a no-nonsense person and always on standby to intervene when pressure of phone calls from individuals to release their relatives who committed offenses become unbearable.
He said Ocha-Brigade will henceforth mount "No Trading On The Road " signposts around Onitsha and thereafter any person who flouted the order will go to jail even as he stated that Ocha-Brigade ensures that waste contractors carryout waste evacuations regularly to ensure that Onitsha is clean, healthy and habitable for people living and doing business in the densely populated commercial city.
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