By Paul Nwosu
The Anambra State Government policy on monthly environmental sanitation is about to change to reflect who we are. Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo, CFR, is determined to get Ndi-Anambra to drive environmental sanitation as it was in the beginning in our various communities.
It is a well established fact that Ndi-Anambra are not dirty by nature. Before the advent of colonialism, to wit, the coming of the white man, Anambra people had a daily sanitation tradition where the house, compound and fire-place were swept clean every morning. The weeds around the compound were removed and the shrubs were pruned. The homestead gardens (Ugbo Azuno) were neatly tended; and even the foliage along the foot-paths connecting houses in the neighborhood were regularly cleared to prevent dangerous reptiles from striking pedestrians.
This was our way of life in and out of season in the Igbo traditional set-up of communal cleanliness. It’s so sad that all of these changed, probably due to urbanization which challenged our native culture of cleanliness.
As our communities became urbanized, attracting immigrants from diverse cultures whose ways of life differed markedly from our people’s own, the environmental cleanliness attitude began to slide downwards.
As the “Compound” and “Yard” phenomenon became acceptable ways of co-habitation among individuals and families in the emerging urban areas, cleanliness and sanitation suffered major setbacks. The situation is best described by the Igbo proverb which says: “The goat owned by all dies of hunger”. Individuals could no longer take responsibility for the cleanliness of their environment.
This gradually resulted in the blighting of urban communities, but then, the colonial and post-independence governments quickly found a way around it with the deployment of the dreaded sanitary inspection officers who fiercely enforced cleanliness in homes and their surroundings. But these officers inexplicably lost their influence under subsequent military regimes and our cities cum urban areas came under the renewed onslaught of waste and garbage, prompting the government of the time to decree monthly Environmental Sanitation as a remedy. This exercise has of course cascaded to markets, parks, yards/compounds and private homes with the attendant restriction of public movement for the period it lasts.
The monthly exercise has proved ineffective because, the very next day and week, refuse and waste took over the whole environment.
It is incumbent on us all to go back to the way it was when families got up in the morning to clean their homes and environment before going to their farms.
In the months ahead, Government plans to deliberately shift from the ineffective monthly environmental sanitation to daily sanitation because that is our way of life. People should sweep their homes, compounds and desilt their drainages. Similar chores must be replicated in their places of work and businesses.
Also important is that people must learn to dispose their garbage in the appropriate places designated by the Anambra State Waste Management Agency (ASWAMA).
It is a duty that calls for the collective response of Ndi-Anambra to give our beloved state a new lease of life in cleanliness. It was a task that our forebears handled with panache, and we must always live up to the glorious pedigree of cleanliness bequeathed to us.
Wishing Ndi Anambra happy World Environment Day.
Paul Nwosu is the Commissioner for Information, Anambra State
