Concerned about the sanitary situation in Ibadan, a non-governmental organization with which I'm associated, Aseto, launched a scheme in certain part of the city.Part of the content of this scheme was the placement of containers in which members of the public could put their solid wastes (except feaces). At the inauguration, the benefiting communities were educated on hygiene and on how the refuse bins were to be used. The refuse bins were being picked up on designated days by the company which our ngo pays for the job. A few weeks after the inauguration, the company complained to us that users were in the habit of including human feaces among the items they dump into the big plastic containers. This was in flagrant violation of the rules set at the inauguration of the scheme. A routine check on our part confirmed the company's complaint. We apologized to the company and promised that the practice would stop. We complained to the community leaders and spoke to a few residents in the area. They promised to change. About two months after, another complaint came that residents were pouring hot ashes into the bins ' plastic bins in addition to not stopping the feaces-dumping practice. We complained again with the threat of removing the bins and taking them to other parts of the city where they would make better use of same. There was respite ' but only for a while. I regret to state here that we were forced to remove the bin at Samanda not just because of the practice just mentioned but because the woman operating a beer caf nearby also insisted that we should relocate or remove the bin. Her reason was that rather than people properly putting their refuse inside the bin they preferred to dump it at the base of the bin. When the bin is filled up ' on a few occasions when the company did not come on time to empty it ' rather than neatly tie their refuse inside cellophane bags and place by the side of the bin, some users would simply litter the area. Another bin placed at the Airport bus stop not far from Sanngo area of Ibadan suffered a similar fate. Whereas we were lucky to pick up that of Samanda and got it relocated elsewhere, we were not so lucky with that of Airport bus stop. This was because the bin got burnt by the hot ashes severally dumped inside it.I recall the above today as a preamble to a report I want to give concerning the attitude of our people on hygiene. Determined to change the unsavoury reputation of Ibadan as a very dirty city, the Ajimobi administration, on assumption of office, bought some bins and placed them in different parts of the city for people to put their solid wastes in. He also organized vehicles that empty these bins from time to time. One was placed at Samanda ' a few meters from where we placed ours some years before. About three or four weeks after, the same thing we complained began to feature ' dumping of human wastes, pouring of hot ashes and littering the surroundings. Because this particular bin was metal and bigger, it could withstand heat and sundry abuses than ours (which, as stated before, was plastic). But those who haul the bins did not found the practice funny ' just as the private company we engaged did not find it funny. They complained. Government officers came and warned the community to stop the practice. I happened to pass through the area again early this week only to find that the bin in question has disappeared. The journalist in me could not resist the temptation of finding out what happened. I learnt that the government agency in charge of the programme was 'forced' to withdraw the bin after several warnings failed to persuade the people from violating the terms of usage. The terms were as simple as anyone could imagine ' no naked fire, no human feaces, no littering of the area. The above may appear 'domestic', 'trivial' or minor against the background of several 'monumental' challenges confronting us as a people and/or nation. But if we found it difficult to behave in such 'simple' routine of keeping fire away from refuse bin, not to put human feaces in same or littering the surrounding, is it any surprise that we are, as a people, beset with what appear as 'monumental' problems' The truth, as I see it, is that we are today confronted with so much problems because we fail to take care of small matters.Government keeps failing in its duty because it is lacking in creativity, determination and vision while the people keep suffering bad governance because they can stomach anything ' including helping those in government to rationalize how billions of naira are paid for fuel that is not supplied.Paradoxically, government keeps misgoverning because the people keep indulging it and because they ' the people ' themselves seem to have forgotten what it is to have what can be regarded as a basic standard of behaviour below which a conduct should not be accepted.In other climes, those who are in leadership positions set standards and are role models for others to emulate. And the standards they set are always the positive ones ' the type that can edify the society and make the nation to progress. Unfortunately, it does look like those who go into government are those with negative standard or no standard at all.Also in other climes, when things are the way they are in Nigeria presently, the people finds a way of 'forcing' their leaders to act civilly and honourably. Part of the way of doing so was the way Nigerians trooped out to show their annoyance to federal government's inhuman increase in petrol price early in January this year. Another was the way citizens of some cities protested the deployment of soldiers to their areas unjustifiably. But how far can a people go if what govern their life is the kind of indiscipline and lack of self control perceptive in the scenario described above ' failure to keep the basic principle of hygiene.As Nigerians shown during Buhari/Idiagbon regime however, and as Lagosians are showing today, Nigerians are capable of obeying the law ' including sanitation laws ' when those at the helm of affairs shown that they mean business, that they themselves are sincere and the wherewithal to keep these laws are provided; such as providing refuse dumps, toilets and refuse collecting vehicles etc.From the foregoing, it is banal to re-iterate that both the governors and the governed have a lot to do if Nigeria must move away from its present primitive condition. In other words, attitudinal change is a necessity if we must change our present condition. The earlier we wake up to this reality the better.jareajayi@yahoo.com
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