₦airaland Forum

BlackfireX:
Better than skull mining and terrorist

millionboi:
Fake news

At the entrance of Ngwa Road Market in the heart of Aba in Abia State, an unperturbed Chika Mba sat gently in the midst of broken bottles, used plastic, dirty nylons, and rags. As the stench of waste and rubbish engulfed the atmosphere, Chika, a 34-year-old trader, moved around to call on passers-by for patronage. Beside him stood other traders and customers, all haggling prices among themselves. If they found the offensive smell oozing out of their surrounding unpalatable, they did not show it in their countenances. As seconds turned into minutes and hours, rather slowly, Chika and other customers and traders alike laughed, ate, drank and haggled prices of different clothing materials amidst the offensive odour. He would soon dance around the dirt with reckless abandon, to the delight of passers-by and fellow traders.

“There is nothing we can do when there is no proper waste disposal system in place,” Mr Mba told PREMIUM TIMES in an interview, his words spoken with a tinge of deliberate nonchalance.

“The point is that if government fails to carry out its responsibility, there is little ordinary people can do,” he said. “We tried using private waste disposal people but the thing didn’t work out.”

Aba is one of the most commercially vibrant cities in Eastern Nigeria. Residents of the city are renowned for their enterprising spirit and commercial endeavors, making the city one of Nigeria’s foremost commercial hubs. Due to the influx of traders and buyers into the city, Aba is surrounded by numerous markets, among which Ngwa Road Market is prominent. Located in Aba South Local Government Area of Abia State, the market is popular among residents as the go-to point for buyers of clothing materials, shoes, and other accessories.

With significant commercial activities come heavy waste in markets across the city, including Ngwa Market. However, due to poor disposal system, waste and rubbish used by traders and commuters in the market are dumped indiscriminately around. Over the years, the waste has become a permanent feature of the market and the larger Aba metropolis, exposing traders and passers-by to probable epidemic and other environmental hazards.

“People have stayed in this environment for so long that we do not care about any health hazard any longer,” Mr Mba said, his hands widely spread out in helpless resignation. “We really care less about those things now. Survival is first and most important.”

The filth surrounding Mr Mba and other market users is, however, not perculiar to Ngwa Market Road.

PREMIUM TIMES investigations across major parts of Aba revealed that too many strategic roads, markets and streets in the commercial city are littered with rubbish, dirt, and fecal materials. This reporter moved through dirty spots in strategic places including Asa Road, Obohia Road, Ohanku Road, Portharcourt Road, as well as the popular Ariaria Market.

Aba’s Records of Filth, Decay

The commercial city of Aba has always been in the news for its filthy environment. Over a decade ago, a former Nigerian Minister of Urban Development, Halima Alao, described Aba as the dirtiest city in Nigeria. The city earned the unenviable record alongside Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

Speaking at a workshop in Ibadan in 2008, the minister expressed displeasure over the environmental sanitation status of Aba and Ibadan, believed to be the biggest city in West Africa. The minister said that in spite of government’s efforts, Ibadan and Aba still remained the dirtiest cities in the country.

More than a decade after the minister lamented the condition, very little has changed in terms of filth and waste management in the commercial city.

In 2013, an environmental right organization based in Aba, Foundation for Environmental Rights, Advocacy & Development (FENRAD) also described the commercial nerve city of Abia State as the dirtiest city across the country. The organization decried the level of refuse dump littered in the major street in Aba after assessing strategic points like Ngwa Road, Asa road by St. Micheals, Ogbor hill, Jubilee and Hospital Roads, among others. It noted that in most areas, the drainage system has been blocked by waste, with the environment oozing with odour from the gutters.

In 2016, data released by the World Health Organization (WHO) revealed that four of the worst cities in the world for air pollution were in Nigeria. The cities named and shamed in the WHO report for high PM10 levels include Onitsha, Kaduna, Umuahia and of course Aba.

Although the Abia State Government has always claimed to be doing its best to address the environmental menace via the Abia State Environmental Protection Agency, the waste armada continues to be a recurring feature of city life in Aba.

As part of measures to tackle the menace, there have been numerous calls on the government to address the waste epidemic in order to avert serious environmental and health disaster in the state. Concerned stakeholders have also called on the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) for intervention.

Abia, alongside Ondo, Edo, Delta, Cross River, Rivers, Akwa-Ibom, Imo and Bayelsa, are the states in which the NDDC is set up to intervene in various developmental aspects of the peoples’ socio-economic life.

The Abia State Government, perhaps overwhelmed by its inability to handle the waste epidemic, has also consistently called on the NDDC for intervention.

For instance, in a press statement posted on the website of the state government in February 2013, the immediate past governor of the state, Theodore Orji, once appealed to the NDDC to help address the waste management crisis in the state. When the Senate committee on the Niger Delta visited Abia state to inspect NDDC projects as part of its oversight function, the former governor asked the committee to site more projects in the state.

Learning, Undergoing Treatment amidst stench

On Port Harcourt Road, by far the most despicable mountain of waste is located at the purported entrance of National High School. The spot, popularly known as Crystal Park Dustbin Junction, is notorious among residents of the state for its heavy stench and fecal waste materials that have blocking the dilapidated and now abandoned Port Harcourt Road.

cosef:
ewedu muslim brainwashed mumuric follower.

gidgiddy:
You mean pictures of the Nigerian Army committing human rights abuse against unarmed civilians?

When will you ever see pictures of the Nigerian Soldiers doing the same against armed killer herdsmen that murder Nigerians every day?

Nigerian Army that is only good at fighting unarmed people, what a disgrace

Taywon:
Zoo republic

raymexx:
#Uche_Ogbuagu Reason For His Defection To APC.
The Imo born comedian turn politician, a member representing Ikeduru in Imo State house of Assembly and a furious critics of Rochas Okorocha, Uche Ogbuagu surprised Imolites when he decamped to the All progressive Congress, the same party he took much time to criticize and tagged evil.
After much condemnation from Imolites, he has come out to give some of the reasons he decamped to APC abandoning PDP and equally threatens to expose atricities committed under 8 months of Emeka Ihedioha's reign.

These are his reasons.


.....Nothing that is happening in Ikeduru PDP that I'm aware.

.....During August meeting of 2019, they made my wife a stranger without involving her.

.....If i call the Governor to complain, he will tell me to wait.

.....I discovered that they have completed projects in Ikeduru on papers, fully completed, but in reality jobs have not gone up to 30 percent.

.....If i call the T.C chairman of Ikeduru to know how much that was coming in, he will tell me that they said i should not tell you.

.....A day before the supreme court judgement, i got information that the Governor has ordered Imo speaker in his Asokoro residence to suspend me and the member representing Abor Mbaise and Ahiazu in the house, because it was rumoured that we complained on how the government bought refurbished cars with outrageous amounts.

.....Were you slapped by the Deputy Governor? Leave that for another day because my wife begged me to leave anything concerning Emeka Ihedioha to God, because if i open up on what i passed through, people will go crazy.

.....I discovered that entraco wasn't doing their job very well, as refuse took over Owerri without prompt action from the government, I called different people in the government to complain, all of them told me if am incharge of dirty evacuation. When i went to radio to advise the government, i was summoned, queried and humiliated for advising the government i fought hard and contributed my quota to enthrone to power.

.....On Deputy Speakership position, during the midnight meeting to decide who will become the deputy speaker ( in the house of an Ikeduru man... referring to former minister Chuka Odom), there was an agreement to zone it to Mbaike Federal Constituency since Mbaise has Governor and Owerri federal Constituency has Senator. In Mbaike Federal constituency, Mbaitolu has the federal house of reps member (ranking) and Ikeduru was in the vantage position to produce the deputy speaker, all the leaders said noooo! I asked for them to do voting, we were all sent out from the venue and Hon. Nwawuba went in and rigged the election with Chuka Odom. I cried for the injustice and all Odom could do was to tap me on the shoulder.

.....As a chairman house committee on budget and appropriations, i didn't contribute any quota on the budget, i was completely shut out and sidelined on the order of the government.

On PDP going to court to retrieve your position having been elected through the party.......He said he's waiting for their letter as it will enable him to finally open up on what he suffered in the party. He said he was tactically avoiding opening up on so many things that took place in that government because of his wife's advise.

gidgiddy:
An unarmed man will fight Soldiers armed with Tanks and rifles? What will he fight them with? His bare hands? That is not a fight, that is presenting your self to be slaughtered.

DTalented:
This one don use em remaining sense chop Agege bread.

What has this got to do with IPOB?

Your masters have already put an end to your Amotekun even before it started and all you could do is go about calling IPOB up and down the internet.
Shame on you.
I mean, shame on you.

Esseite:
And it just happened the ban came after the solidarity March of muslims with Iran?...