Abuja residents want FCTA to rid city of filth

SOME residents of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja have called on the FCT administration to take steps to rid the capital city of filth observable in most satellite towns.

Abuja is a city where both poor and splendor live side by side, but it is quite disgusting when one walks around the streets in most of the satellite towns of FCT, only to be attacked by stench and offensive odour from refuse dumped indiscriminately.

Some of these satellite towns include, villages along Airport Road, Gwagwalada, Lugbe, Goza, Gwagwa, Dutse-Alhaji, Kabusa, Karimo, Mpape, Dei Dei as well as Nyanya and Maraba.

Danladi Usman, a civil servant, who spoke with the Nigerian Tribune in Nyanya, called on the Minister of FCT, Malam Muhammad Musa Bello, to visit most of these satellite towns and see for himself the appalling condition in which some residents of the city are living.

He noted that most streets in Nyanya Phase 4 Area ‘D’ Extension were in terrible condition with wastes being disposed indiscriminately in the area, leading to offensive odour oozing from the refuse heaped up and in most cases covering the road.

Another resident, Innocent Itodo, said the task of keeping the Federal Capital Territory city clean was huge and challenging as the population of the territory was ever increasing due to migration of people into the city in search of greener pasture and better opportunities.

Nigerian Tribune, gathered that many of the area councils did not have enough waste disposal trucks while the few acquired are hardly maintained. The trucks were said to frequently break down leaving waste to decay on streets and on the roads thus polluting the environment.

Angered by the development, the  FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Bello, recently directed the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) to immediately clear all the refuse heaped on the middle of the major road traversing Nyanya, Karu to Jikwoyi.

The directive was carried out almost immediately. while evacuating refuse at Nyanya/ Jikwoyi suburbs, the Director of the Abuja Environmental Protection Board, Mrs. Oluwatoyin Omolola Olanipekun, reiterated that the AEPB had to come in on the instructions of the Minister to immediately clear all the refuse heaped on the road.

She, however, advised the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) to wake up to its responsibility by regularly clearing the garbage to avoid this kind of ugly situation in the future that may warrant this kind of intervention.

Her words: “AMAC has not woken up to its responsibility of promptly evacuating several tons of refuse being generated in the suburbs on daily basis which has caught the attention of the FCT Administration”.