Asaba streets beg for attention

It is widely accepted that one may not know how beautiful a bride is until a surprise visit is paid to her.

This translates to the ugly environmental situation of Asaba, Delta State capital in recent times when the sky opened up for rains to come down.

The torrential downpours left the streets, markets, residential homes, offices, fish ponds and farms flooded while fences of government house and old secretariat among other were pulled down.

Since the beginning of the rains, streets in Asaba have become something else as debris, pieces of paper and all manner of objects clog the gutters.

Few years ago, there was nothing like huge flooding in the town. Government and environmentalists blamed the upsurge of flood on negative attitude of the people in the city especially in the area of waste disposal.

Asaba, which used to be a model of a clean city has relapsed into a deplorable state.

Despite the efforts of the state government, residents have not shown reasonable commitment towards making the environment clean.

From Osadebay way, Nnebisi road, Okpanam, Coker, Ibusa roads etc, refuse put in bags or containers line up the medians or kerbs which for a very long time are begging for repainting.

Apart from action taken by the government on offenders who are unlucky to be arrested, the rate at which people dump waste generated in their houses or stores on the roads remains unabated.

The recalcitrant residents just refuse to register with the agency responsible for collecting waste in the state at a meagre fees.

They chose to hide in the night and deposit their garbage anywhere thereby raising many questions without answers.

It has not also been on the positive side as sand has virtually taken over all the major streets and dualised roads in the metropolis.

The Summit (Government house) road, the Cabinet road leading to Government House, Mariam Babangida way, Cable point, Ezenie and several others are not spared.