By ERIC UGBOR

FOR many years Aba, the commercial nerve centre of Abia State, was a byword for a dirty city on account of the  mountains of waste from both industrial and domestic concerns that became signposts in different parts of the city. Indeed, any visitor to Aba then was sure to be confronted by heaps of wastes that not only assault the nose with their putrefying stench, but also block almost all the roads in the city. The situation was also worsened by the ever-present deplorable roads, with stores and shanties built on top of drainage channels causing blockages and overflow of water especially during rainy seasons.

Some roads like Omuma, Ohanku, Obiohia, Ariaria, among others, were completely overtaken by wastes, making them impassable, especially during the rainy seasons. It was a problem the Chief Theodore Orji administration regarded with great concern and was desperate to address, at least to wipe away the unenviable  toga that Aba is one of the dirtiest cities in the country.

The government had during its first term engaged the services of a foreign firm to undertake the task of remedying the environmental problems of Aba. But the company reportedly failed in this task and had its contract terminated.

*Street sweepers on duty in the new-look Aba

The state government had also employed other strategies like de-silting and regular scooping of drainage channels, and the reconstruction of some of the roads for easy access of disposal vehicles within the city, but the impact was hardly felt as they also failed to arrest this problem.

But the good news is that today, the story has changed for the better, a development that coincided with the appointment of a Deputy General Manager for the Abia State Environmental Protection Agency, ASEPA, in the person of Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu to be in charge of the environmental problems of Aba and its environs.

Within three months of Dr. Ikpeazu’s assignment, many residents of Aba have continued to express delight with the zeal and efforts of ASEPA to have made the major roads of Aba metropolis to wear a new look. The heaps of refuse found in virtually every part of the city, especially within the Asa, Port Harcourt, Aba-Owerri, Ogbor Hill roads of Aba have all disappeared and the evacuation of waste from these roads has remained consistent.

Aba is said to produce about 750 metric tonnes of domestic waste on daily basis, and when what comes from Port Harcourt express and fringes of the city is factored in, it rises to over 1000 metric tonnes of waste generated.

Mr. Mbadiwe Okoronkwo, a businessman along Asa Road in Aba told Vanguard Metro that: “ At least there is no day within the past three months that you wake up to see heaps along the major roads of the city, but we need to watch and see how they sustain this effort even to the hinterlands of the city”.

Chief Mike Nwamuo, a member of the executive of National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, in Aba praised the efforts of ASEPA,but stressed that:  “ASEPA should work on the habits and culture of Aba residents. They should be made to imbibe cleanliness; we are not pigs, we should learn to live clean; they should learn to use the designated dump receptacles instead of dumping refuse indiscriminately along the gutters and roads”.

A prominent traditional ruler in Obingwa Local Government Area of the State, Eze Eberechi Dick who resides in Aba commended the State Governor for the appointment of Dr. Ikpeazu at ASEPA, saying that his presence has already been felt in changing the face of the city for the better.

But Dr. Ikpeazu  stated that there are two strong monitoring teams that go about to make sure that people don’t litter the city during days and in the evenings, adding: “We manned the buckets all through the night to ensure that people comply to the new rules of sanitation programmes in the City”.

Dr. Ikpeazu disclosed that on assumption of office that he inherited 68 refuse heaps in the city of which one of the heaps took almost 112 trucks to remove, while Ngwa road was completely a no go area but stated that ASEPA has since intervened and evacuated all the refuse in the entire Aba metropolis.

He explained that: “To keep the city clean requires the deployment of equipment and manpower. So we had to double the number of people working in the express with 32 bucket minders, while adopting the strategy of carting away rubbish only in the evening. Before I came there was no policy on refuse management and that was what accounted for the lapses we inherited”.