The government of Ogun State has issued a warning to residents, urging them to avoid disposing of infants’ dead bodies and feces in public waste bins located along major roads.
The Commissioner for Environment, Ola Oresanya, gave the warning while speaking with newsmen in Abeokuta.
Oresanya lamented that residents of Abeokuta, the state capital, had been abusing public waste bins placed along major roads and markets by dumping dead babies and faeces in them.
The commissioner, who was reacting to the indiscriminate dumping of refuse and open defecation on the multimillion-naira Panseke pedestrian bridge in Abeokuta, said the government was making plans to secure the bridge from beggars, robbers and destitute who had taken over it.
“We put out a giant waste bin along the road going towards the market (Panseke market), we put another smaller one around the place where okada riders are staying so that they can be putting their waste inside it, but every time we go there to clear the wastes, we found out that the bins contain faeces and dead babies.
“When their children die, they don’t bury them, they will just dump them in the bins. There is a major social problem in that area that needs special attention and we are looking at it holistically,”
Oresanya said.
Speaking on the deteriorating condition of the pedestrian bridge, Oresanya said, “The bridge was constructed so that the pedestrians can use it to cross the road, but on that same bridge, you will find out that only a few pedestrians can use it, people on wheelchair, physically challenged will not be able to cross that bridge. Is there any alternative for them? No, but we are working on that.
“We have to put gates there to stop the destitute from sleeping on the bridge in the night and defecating on it because what we heard is that people can’t use that bridge at night and the destitute that stay there, they rob people, sleep and defecate there. So, they have to be locking that bridge around 6 pm to stop destitute in the night.”
