Governor Bassey Otu of Cross River State has pledged to address the sanitation crisis plaguing Calabar, the state capital, and restore its clean and sparkling status.
The governor gave the assurance shortly after inspecting the dump site located along Lemna Road in Calabar Municipality.
He said he would tackle the environmental problem of Calabar and restore its past glory as Nigeria’s cleanest state capital.
“I decided to come to the dump site to personally appraise the situation on ground first hand and from what I have seen here, it’s quite pathetic.
“I must act immediately to address all issues hindering refuse collection, evacuation and proper dump in line with global practices.
“We are putting a proper arrangement in place to relocate the dump site from the city, but in the mean time the site must be manage properly.
“So, my presence here is to assess the site to enable us deplore the necessary machineries to make it workable in line with current realities.
“Let me use this medium to inform everyone that by the time we put our thoughts to work, Calabar will be clean again”, the Governor said.
Earlier, the manager of the dump site, Ayi Etim Effiong, had lamented the non-availability of the needed machineries to properly manage the site.
He disclosed that the site was confronted with both technical and human encroachment issues, saying there was need to keep it safely open for dumps.
THEWILL reports that the state capital has been plagued with heaps of refuse which, in some cases, have been left for several months without evacuation.
Besides this, the dump site in the capital city along Lemna Road has become an eyesore. This has created serious environmental and health challenges in the state.
THEWILL Correspondent, Aniekan Bassey has over six years experience that spans across several fields in print journalism including development communication, sexual reproductive and health rights issues, crime, climate change, social justice, business and human interest stories.
