Sanitation:50 shops shut in Ibadan

No fewer than 50lock-up shopswere recently shut down by the Chairman of Ibadan North West Local government, Mr Wasiu Olatunbosun, for non-compliance with environmental sanitation laws of the state at the Agbaje Market.The offence of the owners of the lock up shops, Community News learnt was their failure to clean blocked drainage in their domains thereby stalling the free-flow of water.They were also accused of refusal to show up for the mandatory Thursday's sanitation excercise introduced by the Oyo State government as part of measures to reduce flooding.The wife of the state governor, Mrs Florence Ajimobi, who was also on monitoring exercise at the market expressed worries that people do find it difficult to adjust to change when there is a new policy in town, but assured that the state government will ensure that the people comply with the environmental sanitation laws of the state.She noted that the state government would not allow people to self inflict hazard on their lives by blocking drainages capable of causing flooding and outbreak of diseases.'In any new thing people would resist change. We need to continue to educate the people, the essence of the environmental sanitation is to keep our environment clean to avoid the kind of disaster we had in august 26 because with a clean environment and cleared drainages we would not have that kind of disaster again.'Most of them are ignorant. We just need to enlighten them on the need to make them see the need for a clean environment. I have gone round and I can say their attitudes are changing gradually and I am sure by the time we do this for three months their attitudes would have been totally transformed to know that the government meant well for them,' she said.The council chairman, Olatunbosun disclosed that an award mechanism was being designed to encourage traders who comply with the sanitation laws during the exercise in the local government.'We noticed that there was high level of compliance but we noticed that those shop owners did not come at all."We cannot allow such lawless people to go without being punished to serve as deterrence to others. I ordered that all the shops not kept clean or that twhose owners refused to turn up for the sanitation exercise be shut down andlocked up," he added.
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