INTERVIEW: Osun To Reintroduce Monthly Enviromental Sanitation – Adejonrin

The Environment and Sanitation sector is a critical segment of government which has attracted knocks and criticism in Governor Ademola Adeleke’s administration. The six-month old Commissioner for Environment and Sanitation, Hon. Mayowa Adejonrin, has been on cool and hot seat in sustaining the cleanliness of the state and responding to criticism. In this interview with Kazeem Badmus, Adejonrin explains the challenges and prospect of maintaining a clean environment. Excerpt: 

HOW would you describe your six-month experience as the Commissioner for Environment and Sanitation?

My tenure has been very challenging. I started working on my first day in office. There were lots of calls and messages on environmental issues that had to be addressed. People call from various towns and communities to inform me about flooding, indiscriminate dumping of refuse, bushy environment and many other environmental issues. However, I thank God I have been able to address some of these challenges. God have been wonderful and I enjoyed the maximum support of Governor Ademola Adeleke. 

So far, we have been able to make the best out of the worst we met on the ground. I will not be economical with the truth. The situations we met on ground were not palatable. It is the duty of the government to care for the health of the people which we are doing in the little way we can for now.  We are trying our best to make use of what we met on the ground but the problem is that we have limited vans. The vans we met on the ground can’t even satisfy Osogbo alone not to talk of the entire state but the government is already planning on how to address this to achieve a cleaner environment. 

When we came in, we needed to address many things at least to change the narrative. We want to make Osun a cleaner state, especially in the South-West. We are trying our best but the attitude of our people most time is not good. We engage the Private Support Partnership to park refuse and manage the waste in our communities, we have had meetings with the Waste Management Board Agency on how to keep Osun clean. The law is that every household must have where they dump their own refuse, if you don’t have a refuse beside your house, you have to have a waste bin where you put your refuse.

Are the people complying with the law?

That is where the issue is. Our people know what is right but they are not doing it. Are we to say we don’t know the implications of a dirty environment? We do but we chose to ignore it. When you go to the major market in the state, they have Executive Officers whom we hold periodic meetings with alongside the Local Government Officers but with all the meetings, the traders still go ahead to dump refuse on the road. They know what they are doing is wrong that’s why they do it at night. How much will it take the market people to buy a waste bin and make life easier for those packing it?

What Is The Government Doing To Those Violating The Law?

Government is a process.  We can’t just wake up one day and tell the task force people to go and arrest people who are duping refuse indiscriminately. 

What we want to do is to form a synergy with the security and relevant agencies so that we can have a consensus on how to go about it.  Although, you can’t compare what we have now to what happened in the last two to three months. Things have improved and we are not going to rest even after we achieve our aims. I just want to appeal to our good people to stop the indiscriminate dumping of refuse on our road. Health they say is wealth.

How many vehicles is the state government using for packing refuse as of today?

We have five vehicles which are not even enough for Osogbo, not to talk of the entire state.

Some people are of the opinion that Osogbo is gradually becoming the dirtiest state capital, do you agree with that?

Not at all. It is political. I was in Ibadan recently and when I saw some areas there, I said to myself; but some people say Osogbo is the dirtiest capital? This is not true at all. I think that is politics. The state government is trying and this ministry is also trying to do so many things. God will help us.

Apart from the market executives, is there a synergy between the ministry and local governments?

Of course, we have been meeting with environmental officers from the local governments and we have agreed in principle to start monthly environmental sanitation and you know we can’t do that without the input of the local government. As we await the governor’s approval to commence the initiative, we are also doing what we can to make our society clean.  

The environmental officers have been going out to various communities in their local government to sensitise them on what we are planning to do. The local government chairmen have been supervising them too, and the officers are enlightening our people about what the law says. After this, we will start properly and anyone who contravened the law may have his or herself to blame.   

Apart from the local government chairmen, we also have some business consultants who have been coming to us on how they can help us in clearing our environment. We are already engaging them and by the time we come up with our resolutions very soon, things will change for the better.  

It is to our own advantage if we have a cleaner environment. We should not expect the government to do everything for us. You can’t expect the government to be coming to your doorstep to pack refuse. That is why we have the PSP and they are not charging more than N1000 in a month. it is not good enough if we can’t use N1000 to keep our environment clean in a month. The government cannot force the residents to have a cleaner environment. I will advise our people to listen to government directives and to love themselves. They should know that government cannot love them more than themselves.  

The government will do its own job to make sure that we have a very clean environment but we should also assist the government in achieving a safer, cleaner environment.