Plans underway to check activities of herders in Umuahia town – Catechist Jonah 

The Deputy General Manager, Abia State Environmental Protection Agency (ASEPA), Umuahia zone, Catechist Ambrose Jonah, says the State government is perturbed by the way cattles roam the streets of Umuahia, the state capital. 

Jonah, who stated this on Wednesday while fielding questions from newsmen in his office, revealed that plans are on top gear to put a check to the activities of these herders.

He assured the press of conveying the message to the Executive Governor of the state, Dr Alex Otti, emphasizing that cows cannot continue roaming the streets of Umuahia uncontrollably.

The ASEPA DGM, Umuahia zone who wondered why these herders and their cows move even through the Government House area unchecked, also regretted the poor implementation of laws that are already existing, insisting that it is an anomaly to experience such even as the state is witnessing transformation in the area of environmental cleanliness.

He said, “Sometime ago, I called the CSO. And I complained about this to him. To the extent that some of these cows, pass through the government house.”

“It’s a shock. And something like this is not supposed to happen in a state like Nigeria. So I have told him, and we had an agreement.”

Continuing, “So by the special grace of God, I will be sending a memo to the governor. So that at least, let me just seek his own opinion. I have also spoken to our AG, the Attorney General.”

“There should be a law prohibiting some of these things. There are other places where they have to at least graze, and not within the town. So we are working on that.”

Speaking on the environmental cleanliness of the State, the ASEPA DGM, Umuahia zone, expressed satisfaction with the success achieved in the area of environmental cleanliness in the last two years, saying it could only get better.

According to him, Abia State before now was known for bad roads and dirty environment, noting that today, after the declaration of state of emergency by the governor on assumption of office in May 2023, there has been significant improvement in environmental cleanliness of the State.

He said, “When we came on board, the state was something else. The state then was known by two things, bad roads and dirty environments. And through the quick intervention of the governor, Dr. Alex Otti, he declared an emergency in the environmental sanitation sector.”

“And we were able to clear the environment. And today, we are still working hard to ensure that we sustain it. Cleaning the environment is not the most important thing, but sustaining it is the most important thing.”

“And I think he has been doing well. He has provided all the necessary equipment that will help us work better. We now have our payloaders, the caterpillar that we are working with.”

“We also have the compactors, we have the roll-off. These are new ones he has provided for us. Because when we came on board, we didn’t have such equipment.”

“Governor Otti, has provided the keke pickups. In Umuahia zone, we have about 15 of them to enable us to move from one street to another and all estates to pick their waste. There are some places the compactors cannot enter, so these keke buses do enter all those places to evacuate their waste.”

Responding to the issue of blocked drainages in the state, Catechist Jonah, said the government was very intentional in opening up blocked drains in the state, saying this has also paid off.

“By the special grace of God, I think the governor has done us well by providing us all the necessary equipment to enable us work. And when we came on board, there were a lot of ancient gutters. We never knew, people never knew that there were gutters in some of these very places.”

“Governor made it mandatory that we must open those gutters, which we did. And today, I think water is flowing very well within the state. And to sustain it, we are ensuring that people clean their gutters.”

“And we discovered that people dump waste in gutters. So by the special grace of God, within these very two years, we have done well by the support of the governor. Actually, we have a lot of plans at hand.”

Catechist Jonah, however, called on Abians to prioritize the cleanliness of their environment by avoiding littering and dumping refuse into the gutters while pleading with the media to join in the campaign for a clean Abia.