No going back on monthly environmental sanitation – Lagos government
The Lagos state government has pledged to intensify its advocacy on voluntary cleanliness of the environment, saying the monthly environmental sanitation exercise has come to stay in a bid to ensure a cleaner city.
The state government stated this during the second edition of the reintroduced monthly environmental sanitation which took place across the state.
While the wife of the Lagos state governor, Dr. Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu, participated in the exercise at Alimosho local government area, accompanied by the state’s Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, special adviser to the governor on Environment, Rotimi Akodu, members of the Committee of Wives of Lagos State Officials (COWLSO), and other top government functionaries, the state’s Head of Service Mr. Bode Agoro led top government officials in the monitoring of the exercise in Apapa area of the state.
Speaking in an interview with journalists, Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Wahab, lauded the exercise, noting that Alimosho is one of the cleanest local government areas in the state.
He said, “We observed some local governments are very clean and this local government seems to be one of them. Here we cleaned up some areas. What we have to do is to encourage the chairman of the local government area and his team, the member of the House to do much more, more engagement with the people with cleaning the environment. You can see that they have cleaned the environment, they also have their own contractors to cart away the waste so the chairman is well done.
“We also made it clear to Lagosians in respect of the holidays and the festivities, the commitment to the environment is unique. We had our Sallah three days ago, yesterday was a big festival for those that know but today we must clean our environment because we have a commitment that every last Saturday of the month is for Lagos Environmental Sanitation Day.’’
On the recalcitrance of some commercial vehicles on the road and residents not coming out to participate in the environmental sanitation exercise, Wahab said, ‘’In fairness to commercial buses, we didn’t find most of them on the road, just very few. We have already communicated to the right people.’’