By Amos Tauna:
A 60-year refuse dump situated on Sadiq Mamman Lagos Street has been a source of concern to residents within and around the area for these years endangering their health.
According to the residents, previous administrations including the local authorities in the state could not claim ignorance of the pollution caused by the unwanted refuse waste that has been endagering the lives of about 300,000 inhabitants of Angwan Shanu, located at the heart of the city centre.
A visit to the site shows that even the neighbouring communities within the metropolitan city centre have found the life threatening refuse dump as where they often discharge their waste materials.
Burning of the refuse waste every evening has become a common phenomenon thereby making the inhabitants to inhale the ardour continuously resulting in the outbreak of diseases like Malaria, Diarrhea, Typhoid fever, vomiting among others.
Worst still, is during rainy season when water comes out from the refuse waste to the community.
A resident who sought for anonymity said he was close to the age of 60 and grew up to find the refuse waste in the community, adding that all efforts by the community to convince government to relocate the dump site proved abortive.
He added that the ardour coming from the refuse waste has become part of the people, stressing, “You have to close your nose anytime one is passing through the refuse waste. Those living very close to the refuse waste have been bearing an uncomfortable life all these years and it appears no one care about the future of the people’s health.
He explained that apart from the refuse waste being dumped daily by residents within and outside the community, the site has also become a center for people passing their ‘waste tolls’ thereby compounding the health situation of the residents.
A Primary Health Care situated very close to the site, is also being affected with the ardour coming from the refuse dump. A medical staff said prior to the erection of a fence that finally demarcated the hospital and the refuse dump, people were dumping their refuse close to the premises of the hospital thereby affecting the staff and patients who attend the hospital .
She explained that as a result of the refuse waste dumped in the community, the hospital always record cases of Malaria, Diarrhea, Typhoid fever, Vomiting and others diseases especially among pregnant women and children below the ages of five.
She noted that in January 2018, a number of 64 pregnant women who visited the hospital were found to have Malaria, 14 children under the age five were found vomiting. In the month of March, 2018, she explained that pregnant women with Malaria were 42, children under the age of five having Malaria were 68, while children that came to the hospital vomiting were 25.
The residents therefore called on the local and state governments to take decisive steps to bring to an end, the age long life threatening experienced by the residents.
https://www.africaprimenews.com/2018/02/18/waste-management/zl-global-alliance-launches-integrated-waste-mgt-project-ondo-south-west-nigeria/
