Poor waste management by government agencies and households in Bauchi State has been attributed to the frequent cholera outbreak in the state.
The attribution was made by the district head of Bauchi, Alhaji Nuru Adamu Jumba, when he signed the Water Aid commitment card which qualified him to serve as ‘Cholera Champion’ in Bauchi with an additional mandate to promote personal hygiene and environmental sanitation within communities in the Emirate.
The district head, who is also the Chairman Bauchi, noted that the monthly environmental sanitation exercise designed to check filthiness was not being observed by most households, regretting that even residents of Bauchi metropolis who normally complied with the directive ended up disposing of waste in drainages and waterways as against designated waste disposal sites.
Nuru Adamu Jumba also blamed government agencies like BASEPA, for the delay in the evacuation of refuse, saying that this attitude was always responsible for frequent flooding experienced in the state capital, with the attendant risk of contaminating available water sources.
The District Head of Bauchi, therefore, pledged to prove his position as a cholera champion to seek synergy with Bauchi local government council and BASEPA to help eradicate cholera just as polio disease was terminated in the country.
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While speaking in the same vein, another cholera champion who also doubles as the state director of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Alhaji Nuru Adamu Kobi admonished elective officeholders to prioritise provision of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services as against donation of cash and motorcycles to their constituencies.
He also said that politicians have an important role to play in checking the recurrent cholera outbreak in identified hotspots in Bauchi State by ensuring that residents of their respective communities have access to save drinking water to avert the outbreak of waterborne diseases.
In a similar remarks, a one time Amiral of Forum Of Muslim Women Association in Nigeria (FOMWAN) Bauchi, Hajiya Yagana Mohammed Gidado promised to use her experience as a retired health worker and now a cholera champion to embark on house to house campaign to trigger women and children to accord topmost priority to personal hygiene.
Hajiya Yagana reminded women, that now that the clean family campaign has been launched, they should leverage on the campaign to keep their kitchen, toilets, utensils and water sources clean to stop insects from infesting their households with diseases.
Earlier, the spokesman of WaterAid and its Bauchi State partner, Women Development Association For Self Sustenance (WODASS), Mr Magaji Barde implored the crowned cholera champions to mobilise communities around them to appreciate the importance of cleanliness to the socio-economic well being of the people.
Magaji Barde who explained disgust over indiscriminate dumping of refuse on waterways, enjoined the cholera champions to educate residents of the state to observe sanitary rules of environmental cleanliness to stem the spread of cholera and other waterborne diseases.
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