After the May 29 swearing-in of the President and state governors, those who won elections are now trying to form their governments. In the presidency, some special advisers and assistants have been appointed, while some governors have equally appointed advisers and assistants and secretaries to the state governments.

While we await cabinet lists at the federal and state levels, I want to sound a note of caution to the appointing principals not to just appoint people into offices without a rigorous check on their capabilities. Their zest for the schedule they will be assigned should also be properly assessed before being handed portfolios. Very often, we end up with square pegs in round holes in terms of portfolio assignments, in which the people in certain offices got the jobs because they had to be rewarded as loyal party men, or simply because they helped fill the chest with which the campaign was funded.

This is not to say that worthy contributors to the political success of the principals should not be rewarded. The point is that Nigeria is faced with serious existential challenges on a magnitude not seen since during and after the civil war. Thus, we need the most sincere and hardworking men and women who are ready to do all that is needed to heal and restore Nigeria back to the path of sustainable progress and development. We need such men and women as ministers, and chairmen and chief executives of public corporations and regulatory bodies because many areas of our national life are in such distress that emergency declarations will be needed in order to restore acceptable normalcy.

One area where the President and the state governors need to make visionary appointments is the environment. Most states have ministries of the environment, with commissioners and permanent secretaries and directors and other staff. The current state of our environment does not reflect the enormous resources committed to pay their emoluments, official cars, and other perks and allowances of office. All over the states, from Lagos to Port Harcourt, from Kaiama to Kano, the environment is bleeding from misuse and abuse.

Open defecation is widespread, while refuse management is struggling to keep pace with the rate at which it is generated. Garbage is routinely dumped in gutters and drains and any open space found convenient for it, and there. Drains, clogged and blocked with garbage are not flowing, making it very easy for all kinds of organisms to breed and in turn afflict the people with illnesses, especially malaria from the mosquito. Waste water from blocked drains spill onto tarred roads, causing them to crack, leading to roads with failed sections. We have to come to terms with these.

In addition, another threat to our environment are polypropylene products in form of pure water satchets, nylon bags (poly bags) and styrofoam containers. There are also containers used mainly by the bottled water and mineral drinks industry, called PET bottles.  PET is actually an acronym for an alkene hydrocarbon called polyethylene terephthalate. When fellow countrymen and women use the liquid contents of these bottles, they are simply flung away without any thought as to the effect on the environment.

There seems to be no structured response by state governments on how to tackle the danger these items constitute to the environment. Our water bodies are now polluted with these pet bottles and nylon products. On land, they just sink and over time, will threaten our access to soil water. Already, people digging to build septic tanks or drilling boreholes are encountering the problem of having to contend with nylon bags, PET bottles, and pure water satchets, as deep as four feet or more into the ground. 

Scientists tell us that it takes 1,000 years for a plastic bag to degrade in a landfill. We are also told that plastic bags don’t break down completely but instead photo-degrade, becoming microplastics that absorb toxins and continue to pollute the environment. We cannot continue using the environment the way we are currently doing, we are simply ruining the future of our unborn children today.

Apart from the danger to land and aquatic life that poly products pose, rapacious deforestation is ongoing, especially in the Southern states. Many foreign companies from countries we think are our friends are involved in this.

From where I stand, it is time for the governors to appoint persons with passion for the restoration of our living space into the ministries of environment. I am also of the view that officials of the environment ministries should all be field workers; they should monitor the living space, as they say, 24-7, and only come to their offices to write and evaluate their reports. Further, we must secure our environment by policing it very well against misuse and abuse. It is not out of place to have the Police create and deploy squads dedicated towards protecting the environment. 

TGIF, in the hope that at least one governor will read this.