A promise Kept on Healthy Living through Clean Environment in Osun

By Kingsley Omoyeni

Attempting an assessment of how far the administration of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has been able to achieve its six points integral action plans one after the other has led me to consider one of the points which is very critical to human existence and comfort ability; “restoration of healthy living” which is the fourth among the six point.

How can you live a healthy life? One of the most important ways to live a healthy life is for the environment to be clean all the time. So, when Aregbesola’s administration came on board with the determination to restore healthy living, it was obvious that the administration was determined to rid the state of waste and make it look clean.I want us to attempt to enlighten ourselves about the five letter words; CLEAN.

Clean is a condition of the environment that is free of unwanted matter. Cleaning is the process used to achieve the clean condition. Best viewed as a fundamental environmental management process, cleaning is a systematic, science-based process that puts unwanted matter in its proper place or where it does not cause harm or adverse effects. Understanding the importance and effectiveness of cleaning allows us to fully appreciate its usefulness and the efforts that have been taken by the Aregbesola government to ensure that we have clean environment which will in turn guarantee the restoration of healthy living.

Man cannot live and survive amidst waste. A clean environment that includes clean air, water, land and energy, is essential for human existence, conducting business and creating wealth. These components must be sustained through conservation and proper management. Additionally, by-products of human activity should be separated from man at the sanitary level, the cleaning process provides, this is exactly what Aregbesola has done.

Cleaning reduces adverse exposure levels and risks by removing problematic substances from the environment, thereby reducing or eliminating exposure and effect. Effective cleaning often is the most cost efficient means of managing risk in a built environment.

Cleaning also is a systematic, science-based process. When applied to environments and environmental sub-compartments, that process is comprised of specifying and understanding the nature and characteristics of what is to be made free of unwanted matter, such as pollution or soils. It also locates, identifies and understands the physical, chemical or biological characteristics of the unwanted matter to be removed; separates and contains the matter prior to removal; transports and removes the unwanted substance from the environment or the object to be cleaned; and properly disposes or repositions the matter so as not to degrade or harm other environments or the natural environmental system.

From the start of civilization, man has been the only species that cleans its environment, albeit for the sake of survival. Other animal life “foul the nest,” move out and allow the cycles of nature to produce the waste. As long as man lives in human settlements, he has been forced to keep his environment in order or clean.

The present government in the State of Osun has taken the bull by the horn in this regard through various interventions which will be highlighted as we proceed in this piece.

As a result of biological necessity, humans manage their lives by managing their environment. The basic objective of the human environment is to define a living space to defend man from his surroundings. In settlements, natural elements, such as rain, snow and dirt, remain outside at a distance. Other living creatures—particularly humans and animals—are kept at bay.

Once human settlements emerged, environmental management systems became necessary for separating inhabitants from their own waste products. Man no longer could strike his tent and move on. Wastes grew and needed to be placed out of the way. Well-designed wells and garbage pits were found at the archeological sites of isolated dwellings and villages. Ancient settlements that survived and evolved into modern built environments sustained life because of the evolving process of environmental management, the center of which is the sanitation revolution and cleaning.

Usually, the cause of adverse environmental effects can be explained or managed. We have better direct control and influence over environments that are closest to us, such as the built environment in which we live and work. These environments can be managed and kept orderly and functional primarily through cleaning.

Cleaning Reduces Environmental Risks. Sanitation or Sanitary problems occur where the risk of adverse health effects is low or unacceptable. Effective cleaning reduces exposures to hazardous matter, thereby reducing risks while contributing to a sanitary state.

Indoor environments are readily manageable, unlike ambient environments where the causes of pollution and its control are complex. Built environments can be designed, operated and maintained to suit their inhabitants’ needs, but the general environment needs the efforts of a government who is determined to ensure that the people remains healthy.

We need to better understand the influence natural and manmade environments have on our health. Once we do, it becomes apparent that effective management, especially in the form of cleaning, is the key to removing unwanted by-products and reducing serious health risks.

Adverse effects, while harder to define, usually are described as conditions we will pay to control or correct, such as health, comfort and property values. On a micro-scale, environmental change is part of natural evolution.

To achieve that clean and healthy environment prompted the government of the state to declare a 90-day emergency sanitation exercise in the state in 2010 to deal with the sanitation challenges of Osun. The exercise included the excavation of sand filled gutters, removal of debris and removal of all possible dirt that were blocking the drainages, apart from making the state cleaner, it has also checkmated flooding in the state.

In other to avoid a relapse of the successful sanitation exercise, the government created a culture of cleanliness and functional administrative framework that could cure the abysmal reputation; the Osun Waste Management Agency (OWMA).

Part of the mandate given to OWMA is to enlighten the populace to bring out their properly packaged waste items before 6am on the general sanitation days and also every day of the week, place it at designated pick up points, after which waste disposal trucks and road sweepers will convey the waste to dump sights. In a bid to making waste disposal easy in the state , the state government spent millions of naira to acquire waste disposal trucks which were stationed in all parts of the state. The waste truck drivers in the state have been professionally trained at the Lagos driver’s institute and at the LAWMA office after which they returned to the state and were fully certified.

The state also has environmental health officers patrolling its environs to prevent and deter people from unsanitary practices such as defecating in public places and disposing of waste indiscriminately.

The Osun Waste Management Agency (OWMA) is very visible in all parts of the state carrying out tasks such as ;recruitment of O’YES cadets to complement the efforts of the permanent staff of the local government WES department on environmental sanitation exercise, OWMA monitors the regular cutting of road verges in major roads across the state, desalting of drainages to ensure free flow of water to prevent flooding, recruitment of casual labourers to enhance everyday sanitation and refuse collection throughout all the local government areas in the state as well as the provision of deep wells across communities in the state. OWMA also supervises the weekly sanitation for markets which holds every Thursday between 7 and 10am.

The state government also went a step further in the quest to make the state clean when it launched the (O’Clean and O’Clean +) programmes which was launched with funfare through the Ministry of Environment and Sanitation.

The state government created a standard and World class dumpsite and managed by professionals where waste from all parts of the state is dumped and made to go through the best scientific process for the safety of the environment.

A drive round the state of Osun beginning from Osogbo, the state capital will lay credence to the fact that it is one of the cleanest states in the country where you don’t find wastes or dumpsites litter the environment, there is no town in the state where you will find yourself being greeted by offensive odours hoozing out of dumpsites.

A clean and healthy environment adds to the economic growth of such a place because it means the inhabitants of such an environment will spend less on medications and will definitely be more productive because they have more time and energy to work and be productive because of the sound health they enjoy.

One can say that the administration of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has actually kept his promise of coming to restore healthy living among the people of the state. It is now left for residents of the state to key into the ideology of the government in terms of keeping the environment clean for the benefit of all. Residents also need to comply with the terms and conditions of the waste management officials in a bid to continue making the state clean and healthy.