From Esther Akaa, Lafia
Nasarawa State Government says it would distribute 5,000 waste bins across the 13 local government areas of the state, to improve environmental sanitation.
The Chief Environmental Officer in the State Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, Alhaji Abubakar Mohammed, stated this on Saturday in Lafia, while briefing newsmen after monitoring the monthly sanitation exercise held across the state.
According to him, the ministry has concluded plans to distribute the items to various local government areas which would be stationed at strategic locations to improve environmental sanitation.
He explained that the government, through the ministry, was doing all it could, towards ensuring full compliance with the state environmental law and expressed satisfaction with the level of compliance so far.
“What we want people to do is to have attitudinal change towards their environment. The monthly environmental sanitation is not meant to witch hunt anybody but we want them to have a very clean environment.
“We came out with another strategy, which we involved all the traditional rulers in the state. We sent letters to them and they complied and have keyed into this culture of ensuring that residents obey the sanitation law.
“We arrested only 11 people because of the compliance and so, we are going to maintain this strategy, especially as the world is experiencing the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic.
“The 11 people arrested will be prosecuted according to the law and their fines are from N3,000 to N10,000,” he said.
