In Ogun, people live, trade in the midst of dirt
In Ogun, people live, trade in the midst of dirt
A display of refuse bags along the road in Sango, Ogun State. | credits: Jesusegun Alagbe
A first time visitor to Sango, a town in Ogun State, few kilometres away from Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre, can hardly miss the sight of piles of dirt that line up the roads of the ancient town.
But strangely enough, this scenario does not stop the residents of this town from engaging in economic activities: from the meat seller to the soft drinks hawker, and also the fruit vendor, none of them bothers about the dirty environment they display and hawk their wares.
More strangely enough, the buyers never seem to care, too. From the thirsty pedestrian who wants a soft drink to quench his thirst to the hungry bus driver (and his conductor) who needs the services of roadside food vendors, buying from these locals in the midst of heaps of refuse do not seem to be a source of worry.
It is often said that first impression lasts forever, but this saying may not seem to bother the residents of Sango, Ota, Alagbado, and other areas where our correspondent visited in Ogun State.
As a first time traveller to the town, Oluseyi Oyegbade said she thought the piles of dirt were a sort of exhibition by the locals until she realised it was not so. Having been to Dubai, an economic powerhouse in the United Arab Emirates, Oyegbade said, “One of the things that would certainly catch your first attention when you get to the city is the skyscrapers and the gorgeous-looking streets.”
But that is not so in this part of Ogun State because the piles of dirty bags that line up not just the inner streets, but also the major roads where vehicles and people ply, darken their potential beauty.
On our correspondent’s visit to Sango, for instance, one would not be able to tell whether the people living and trading in the Roundabout area, the major economic hub of the town, had nowhere else to dispose their wastes other than the roads.
Flood in Akobo area, Ibadan, Oyo State
Even if someone were blind, the odour that emanated from the piles of dirt on the road would tell him a bit about the situation in general. ‘Well-arranged,’ the refuse bags littered everywhere on the road.
In this same area, foodstuff sellers were seen laying their wares along the road, not allowing the dirt to deter them from making their money. It was as if it was a sort of display, an exhibition – of dirty bags.
“And this is the major business hub – which perhaps would have been thought to be the most attractive sight to behold in the town,” another first time visitor to the town, Abraham Olatunde, complained,
Though there were about two large refuse disposal tanks near the roundabout, it was surprising people still prefer disposing their refuse on the road.
There were more scenes of dirty piles to behold in Ota, another major town in the state. Right from the take-off from Sango to arrival in Ota, there was none other sight to behold along the road other than that of bags of refuse.
Roads in other areas of the state like Alakuko, Agbado, etc. are not exempted from being used as refuse dump grounds.
Poor hygiene is the bane of Africa health crisis
“No one needs to be a rocket scientist to know that a dirty environment causes health problems. In fact, the current Ebola outbreak in this part of the world is majorly linked with our practice of poor hygiene. This is just about common sense,” an Ota-based public health expert, Funmilayo Adesuyi, said.
Adesuyi opined that diseases could only thrive in places where the people do not care about the maintenance of their environment, rather than their health.
She said, “A people’s state of wellbeing starts from the way they regard their environment. If they ignore their outside environment but take care of themselves, they will still be back to zero level.
“Even when people live in beautiful homes but operate in dirty environments, they may also suffer from the same set of diseases that those who live in the streets do. Why? Because they will not live in their beautiful homes forever; they would go out to buy meat from the meat seller who operates in a dirty environment, and they could fall sick from consuming such. The effects are innumerable.
“A dirty environment is a fruitful place for bacteria to thrive. In fact, studies have shown that our aversion to dirt has resulted in widespread cases of asthma. And in our paranoia concerning germs and dirt, we often use antibiotics carelessly, causing great damage to our human environment.
“And by using anti-bacterial drugs, we end up killing useful life forms in us and strengthen the nasty ones. There are certain harms we have caused our body systems due to our dirty environment.”
Adesuyi concluded that people should not wait on the government to get rid of dirt from their environment because in the end of it all, government does not suffer from possible outbreak of diseases; the people do.
“People should learn to do certain things for themselves without calling on the government. Those people you see piling up the bags of dirt on those roads are not the government, they are the people. A man reasonable enough should know that it’s wrong because when disease breaks, it is not going to affect the government, but the people,” Adesuyi said.
An Ibadan-based environmentalist, Mr. Femi Alao, said apart from a possible outbreak of diseases in Ogun State, if the residents keep piling up dirt in their streets, the environment also becomes more polluted and more species of animal become extinct because of their poor habitat.
Alao stated that ensuring proper hygiene does not benefit only human beings, but also the animals that live in their environment. He also said there were many environmental challenges that were endangering the climate and survival of the living things therein, and that it is only through the proper management of the environment that human beings could survive the impending environmental crisis.
He said, “Animals have rights, too, just like human beings. Nature too does. And what we turn this environment to determines the survival of all of us. Imagine people leaving rubbish lying around on our roads, apart from the danger it poses to our health, such rubbish either gets washed away and animals in the sea mistake it for food and it kills lots of them.
“We are also talking about soil and water pollution which could arise from such a scenario. Each time it rains heavily in Ibadan here, for instance, it is always followed by flood which destroys lives and property.
“So piling up dirt on the roads has multiple effects, apart from being a shameful act by the people. It is a bad behaviour on the part of the people because even if no one tells them, they should know. But if they keep doing that, I believe the Ogun State government could now also enforce more stringent environmental laws.”
Dirty environments lead to mental problems
A psychologist, Mrs. Tolu Adegoke, said that there are studies that link depression in human beings to their dirty environment.
Apart from depression, there are also a number of mental health problems that could arise from the scenario where people keep dirt in their homes or in the streets.
She said, “For someone who comes all the way from a clean environment, setting their eyes on those dirty piles could make them feel depressed. There are studies that proved that.
“Depression and other mental health ailments are conditions that people can get as a result of living in dirty environment, especially for children. In fact, a dirty, messy or cluttered environment might be overwhelming to some kids, causing them to become aggressive, angry or violent due to the frustration caused by such environments.
“It is therefore important that we learn to keep both our homes and our environments clean and tidy. It helps our mental health and even tells a story about our personalities.”
An official of the Ogun State Environmental Task Force, who identified himself simply as Mr. Bello, told Saturday PUNCH that it was the act of disobedience on the part of the residents of the areas where our correspondent visited that was responsible for the scenario.
He said, “We clean these areas everyday and there are even tanks which are placed at strategic places for people to dump refuse in, but they would not obey. We cannot work 24/7 and that is why those tanks are there.
“But this is one thing we have discovered: once we finish cleaning these areas every morning, before we could say Jack Robinson, these people have placed those dirt bags on the road again. Inspection cannot be done at every minute of the day which is why these people are having a field day.”
The Ogun State Commissioner for Environment, Mr. Ayo Olubori, could not be reached as of the time of filing this report as his phone number was unreachable.
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