A simple request of my erudite and ever mentally agile senior friend Emmanuel Orji to please educate me on my maternal uncle Chief J. A. Jumbo’s contribution to the cleanliness of Owerri availed me this short but important history of Owerri, that I hereby share with all…thanks to Kwenu.
--PETER OPARA
Before They Revert to Type - Keeping Owerri Clean
Emmanuel A. C. Orji
Thursday, May 15,
2008
From time immemorial, Owere (which the British called "Owerri") had always been a clean town. When Mr. J. D. Tetlow, B Arch, ARIBA, AMTPI (after whom a major street is named in Owerri), visited Owerri in August 1945 from Kumasi, Gold Coast (now Ghana) to start work on the initial planning of Owerri Town, following his invitation by the then District Officer (DO) Mr. H. F. P. Wetherell (NOT "Wetheral"), Tetlow remarked in his report (now known as "Tetlow Report") as follows:-
“Sanitary condition in
the town is extremely good, compounds are swept twice daily as a matter of
course and there are no accumulations of rubbish as this is collected into
compost pits (borrow pits resulting from building). It is unlikely that better
conditions could be maintained by the most rigid Sanitary supervisions (paragraph
26 of Tetlow Report). These remarks unfortunately do not apply to the Hausa and
Yoruba quarters where there is considerable squalor and stringent regulations
are necessary. It has been agreed by the Town Council that Sanitary regulations
shall also apply to the ‘New Layout’.” (paragraph 27 of Tetlow Report).
For the full text of Tetlow Report see Appendix to Owerre in The Twentieth Century 1901-1999 by Emmanuel A. C. Orji: Casers Ltd., Lagos, 1999, 252 pages.
With the growth of urbanization however, the accumulation of refuse in the town followed. The arrival of Col. S.A. Adenihun as Military Administrator of the original Imo State coincided with the growth of refuse mountains in Owerri such that intimidated everyone.` One man who accepted the challenge posed by the situation was a young medical practitioner, Dr. Emmanuel M. Umez-Eronini who fought the problem head on. One day in 1978, he could not reach his hospital because the road leading to it had been blocked with a huge mountain of refuse that was stinking. On November 10, 1978 Dr. Eronini launched the Keep Owerri Beautiful Society to rid the city of refuse and develop a taste for good environment in its inhabitants. He mobilized the people for this task and the response was wonderful. They turned out voluntarily to keep the city clean employing simple methods of refuse disposal.
Impressed
by Dr. Eronini’s initiative, the government of Imo State then under the
governorship of Col. Sunday Ajibade Adenihun decided to set up a machinery for
carrying out refuse disposal in all urban towns of the state. A gentleman from
Ogoja and one-time Parliamentary Secretary in Eastern Nigeria, Mr. J. A. Jumbo,
introduced SULO to Dr. Onyike James Onyike, Imo State Commissioner for Local
Government and Social Development at the historic time. SULO operation was
demonstrated in a film to Dr. Onyike and he was convinced that SULO was the
answer to the problem of refuse disposal in Imo State. Dr. Onyike James Onyike
in turn sold the SULO idea to Col. Adenihun, and the Imo State Government
decided to employ the services of SULO. That was how SULO came into Imo State.
Dr. Emmanuel Umez-Eronini was quick in advising against a sophisticated refuse
disposal system, arguing that it could not be sustained by a technologically
infant society. He preferred and rather advised a simple refuse disposal system
which the peoples’ level of development could sustain.
First, a Refuse Disposal Board was constituted and inaugurated. An agreement was then signed with SULO Eisenwerk Streuber and Lohmann GMBH and Company KG of Hertford, Federal Republic of Germany, for refuse disposal project in the state at a contract sum of DM 34,332,215.00 (N10,483,586.85) [See para 16.4.32 and 33 at p.38 of Handing Over Note from the Military Administration to the Civilian Administration, Imo State, 1979- Imo State Official Document No. 8 of 1979.]
The SULO refuse disposal system equipments were stocked in the premises of the then Ministry of Local Government and Social Development where this writer was then working. The equipments went into operation following the inauguration of a civilian administration on October 1st 1979 with Chief Sam Mbakwe as Governor.
By 1984, it became clear that something had to be done to ensure effective enforcement of sanitary rules. Accordingly, on August 17, 1984, I made the following minute to the Governor of Imo State at the time, then Brigadier Ike Nwachukwu, which I titled "THE VITAL LINK IN THE GOVERNMENT EFFORTS TO KEEP OUR ENVIRONMENT CLEAN":-
“In our society today, people are more prepared to break laws than to keep or obey them. A taxi driver is more willing to take a short cut to the wrong direction than to take the long route in the right direction. But whenever an enforcement officer is around to enforce the law, the average Nigerian obeys the law. Thus as at now, there is a case for an enforcement officer to be around to cause the Nigerian to obey the law. But it is also necessary for the public to easily identify the enforcement officer or he could be queried and taken for a fake and even manhandled.
It is against this background that I see the great need for Health Superintendents to be fully uniformed like Sanitary Inspectors were before the civil war. Such uniform, well kept, would generate in the Health Superintendent confidence and charismatic look that can have a positive psychological influence on the people, and enhance his effectiveness. Indeed, our people are anxiously awaiting the emergence of the traditional and ubiquitous Sanitary Inspector before they are convinced that Government is really serious over its efforts to keep our environment clean.
Again, it is necessary to ensure speedy prosecution of environmental sanitary defaulters- in fact instant prosecution would produce the desired results. My experience is that the Magistrate Court, with all its technicalities, is not ideal for such prosecution. If anything, the Magistrate Court will frustrate the efforts of the Health Inspector. The quickest means of prosecuting and enforcing of Public Health Ordinance is prosecution in the Customary Court. It will also help the situation if the Mobile Court now being set up to try traffic offences is empowered to try environmental offences as well particularly in urban areas. Indeed , a combination of the use of the two courts will produce maximum results. However, care must be taken to ensure that each Health Inspector must be accompanied by a Sanitary Witness while on inspection. This will provide ready corroboration of evidence during prosecution.
In the light of the above, I recommend that the Military Governor directs as follows:-
(1) that the Commissioner for Health takes immediate steps to find out what uniforms are necessary for Health Superintendents;
(2) that following(1) above, the uniform agreed upon be ordered by the Ministry of Health;
(3) that uniforms ordered in (2)above be sold to Health Superintendents;
(4) that all Health Superintendents wear uniforms while on duty;
(5) that environmental offenders be, as far as possible, prosecuted and punished on the spot;
(6) that in pursuance of (5) above, Customary and Mobile Courts be set up at once to ensure expeditious prosecution of environmental offenders; the Mobile Court should be used in the urban areas.
I believe that if the suggestions made above are implemented, they will go a long way to enhance government efforts to keep our environment clean.”
After reading the above memo, the Governor approved it in its entirety and sanitary inspection was re-introduced in the old and larger Imo State.
One unfortunate element of governance in Nigeria is that government institutions and policies are not allowed to grow from regime to regime. Unfortunately, each regime does its own thing in its own way within its own tenure resulting in no continuous action over time. Thus, government programmes and policies in Nigeria are more ad hoc than enduring as if Nigerians are those whom the poet Mathew Arnold once described as-
“Light halt-believers of our casual creeds,
Who never deeply felt, nor clearly willed,
Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds,
Whose vague resolves never have been fulfilled;
For whom each year we see
Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new;
Who hesitate and falter life away,
And lose tomorrow the ground won today.”
If the commendable work now being done to ensure a good environment in Imo State is to succeed both now and in the future, there is a case for the steady and sustained enforcement of strict sanitary rules in the society, for, as pointed out in my 1984 memo, our people will not voluntarily obey rules unless such rules are enforced by an authority. Right now, traders have developed a new strategy of displaying their wares outside their shops, indeed between their shops and the main road as if their shops are no longer necessary. Some have even gone to the extent of displaying their wares on the road!
As Shakespeare rightly pointed out in Measure For Measure,
“We cannot make a scarecrow of the law, setting it up to frighten birds of prey, till custom, finding it harmless, makes it their perch, and not their terror.”
Indeed, my experience in America has shown me that two things, more than anything else, make that country to excel- transparency and consequence. Our own country is awaiting the strict application of these two things for it to develop.
To summarise, I wish to enphasise that unless strict and very regular sanitary inspection is carried out and sanitary defaulters punished instantly, all the efforts now made to clean our environment will come to naught. Accordingly I advise:-
1. That sanitary inspection as was carried out in Eastern Nigeria be introduced in Imo State NOW;
2. That sanitary inspection be ceaseless, persistent, and enduring;
3. That mobile courts be set up to facilitate instant and on-the-spot prosecution and conviction of sanitary offenders.
Our people are just incorrigible. So, before they revert to type, the measures recommended above should be implemented to prevent them from doing so.
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Emmanuel A. C. Orji, a Senior Citizen, wrote from Orji, Uratta in Owerri North Local Government Area of Imo State.
April 22, 2008.