RAYMOND OZOJI reports
As part of efforts to ensure operation clean and healthy Anambra state, over 4000 Ochabrigade-ASATU Marshals have been Inaugurated to help enforce clean and healthy environments in all the 179 communities in the state.
Performing the inaugural ceremony at the Government House Awka over the weekend, Managing Director of the Operation Clean and Healthy Anambra(Ochabrigade) Chief Celestine Anere said it was necessary to have such marshals in every community to help carry on the fight against all forms of indiscipline, juvenile delinquencies and environmental pollution.
Anere said that the newly Inaugurated marshals have the full backing of the government to enforce the laws on environmental cleanliness in their respective communities which he emphasized as the primary responsibility of Ochabrigade.
He said there was need to partner all the Presidents-General of the 179 communities in the enforcement of environmental laws as they were closest to the grassroots and which was the remote reason Ochabrigade sought collaborations with the Anambra State Association of Town Unions(ASATU) which eventually resulted in the formation of Ochabrigade-ASATU Marshals.
Although Anere cautioned the marshals against taking the laws into their hands in the course of enforcement or exhibiting actions in contrast with the laws establishing Ochabrigade, he stated categorically that any marshal found wanting in the line of duty would be arrested and handed over to the police even as he made it point-blank that Ochabrigade is ready to defend them at all times so long as they operated within the ambit of the law.
Anere also pointed out that the newly recruited Ochabrigade-ASATU Marshals would be given proper training and orientation on their new assignments to enable them to do their jobs effectively because he believes very strong that Anambra communities must be freed from underaged prostitution, illicit drug trafficking and consumptions, production of adulterated consumables, open defection and urination, touting and all manner of antisocial behaviours inimical to public order.
Meanwhile the National President of the Anambra State Association of Town Unions (ASATU) Chief Barr. Titus Nnabuike Akpudo, remarked that the marshals would interface with the governor Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo at the Prof. Dora Akunyili Women Development Centre Awka in January next year after which they would move on to the training and orientation to enable them to understand the requirements of their jobs.
Akpudo also stressed that the newly established Ochabrigade-ASATU Marshals would work very closely with the Presidents-General of their respective communities to enable them to profer solutions to issues of public concerns, adding that a State Task Force Team would be formed from amongst the marshals to guard against excesses and acts that may contravene the laws empowering them to function as agents of environmental cleanliness in Anambra communities.
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