We'll Make Ogun Cleanest State
By Chris Ajaero and Bankole Makinde
Monday, September 11, 2006
Anthony Ojeshina Ogun State commissioner for Environment spoke to Chris Ajaero and Bankole Makinde on the achievements of his ministry and the thrust of the government's waste-to-wealth agenda. Excerpts:
Newswatch: You are the pioneer commissioner for environment in Ogun State. How has your ministry fared in the past three years?
Ojeshina: The ministry was started by Governor Gbenga Daniel. I would say that in the past three years, this administration in Ogun State has shown the political will to address the issues of the environment. For so many years, issues of environment had been put on the back burner. But when I was appointed commissioner of environment, I said that I want to make a conscious effort to bring it to the front burner because there has to be a paradigm shift to look at the issue of environment and make sure that I put a lot of efforts on it because I know its impact on the people.
Fortunately for me, Governor Daniel is very much interested in solving environmental problems. As a matter of fact, before he became governor, he wrote a book called The Land of My Dreams and in that book, a lot of things that were highlighted are his own vision about Ogun State, including how to create a healthy environment.
He had a conviction that he wants to make a difference in Ogun State. That was why he set up the Gateway Foundation and I was involved. That urge to make a change in a state we used to call the "Sleeping Giant" made him to seek to serve. And the theme then was "Awaking the Sleeping Giant" because it was a state that was doing so well but all of a sudden everything started dropping.
So, it took a natural process for the changes to become effective. There was a blueprint developed by the governor after visiting the 236 wards of the state. It was based on this blueprint that the governor established his contract with the people that this is what he is going to accomplish. It is supposed to be for a three-year period but I make bold to tell you that 95 percent of what he set out to do for Ogun State have been accomplished. It is indeed a paradigm shift and we thank God for it.
Newswatch: When you assumed office as commissioner for Environment, you must have had a vision. What was your vision and to what extent have you achieved that?
Ojeshina: I was part of the group that developed the blueprint for environment because I am an environmentalist. In the blueprint, we had looked at all the problems in Ogun State as discovered during the ward-to-ward visit. And we were able to identify different levels and categories of environmental problems. Actually, the number one problem is water contamination. And water contamination occurs largely as a result of improper management of waste. Waste management itself is also a problem that has to be tackled. The issue of erosion is also a problem because if you go across the state, you see all sorts of gullies. Then, we looked at the problem of industrial pollution. Ogun State had a lot of industries. Otta Industrial Estate and Agbara Industrial Estate. But over the years, there had been no political will to say to the management of these industries, this is how you comply with environmental issues, because there were not even environmental laws. There was an environmental agency that was established because the federal government said you must have an agency. But there was no funding. So, it was a lame duck agency. And there were no strict environmental guidelines and laws to control industry and commerce. So, we looked at the problem of environmental pollutions. Of course, we looked at the issue of desertification, loss of bio-diversity and a few other things.
As an environmental consultant, I did not like how other governors paid lip service to environmental issues. But I saw a governor who was interested in solving environmental problems. And that pushed me into addressing the problems. He realises that environment cuts across the spectrum of our economic and social life. That if you don't do something about it, it has a direct impact on our lives by bringing about human misery.
We started by looking into the area of waste management. And today by the special grace of God, for a ministry that is three years old, we have done well. Recently, we won an award for indigenous waste management practice. We won the award because of what we call the "Community Based Waste Management Practice" which is where we take the bottom-up approach and we use our community development associations. But the key is that we said waste management should no longer be treated as a social issue, it is a commercial issue. There is no where in the world where people don't pay for waste to be carried away from their door step. It is called the Polluter Based Principle, PPP.
But here, we had said that it is a government responsibility and years after years, we said it was a statutory responsibility of local government and you continue to see dirty cities. There is no government that will ever have enough money to handle the issue of waste management.
So, because of this, we had to use the community based approach and after we educated the communities about the health implications, they embraced the idea. We told them to pay a small amount so that the operators can take the waste away and then we put a structure in place. And the communities involved contractors who are known to them and who pick up the waste. But we make sure they have all the requirements to take care of the business. The money is collected by the Community Development Associations, CDA, in conjunction with the contractor and taken to the bank.
Unlike what happens in other PSP, where people go to your door steps, collect your money and take the waste, once they do that they dump it on the next location, we don't allow that. The waste is collected and taken to a designated site where that contractor now gets the voucher based on the number of trucks he brings that are carrying waste. So, we have now made sure that we stopped indiscriminate dumping of waste because the contractor knows that he doesn't get paid until that waste gets to the final site that government has designated. And we monitor this. It is also becoming self-sustaining because the contractor is paid based on the money collected by the communities. And so, other communities which have seen the gains have also embraced it because people don't like to see garbage around them. And so that is an area we think we have accomplished desired objectives.
Industrial pollution is an area we have also made an impact. But we did not use the sledge hammer approach because for years industries have been here and nobody pushed them. But we came and said to the industries, there are laws which you must comply with. But we also understood that you cannot change overnight and so we had to educate them. So, what we did was to give the industries a two-year moratorium to comply. After the moratorium had ended, we decided to shut down some industries for non-compliance. We want development but we want sustainable development. In the area of controlling gully erosion, we have also done quite a lot because we found out that it is quite devastating. And the governor decided that we must make conscious efforts to do the engineering designs and we are doing that. Although, it is quite expensive, the state is determined to tackle it. But we also get help from the Federal Ministry for Special Duties and the Ecological Fund. So we are fixing that and people are happy. But we still have a long way to go in that area. We are taking it to all the senatorial districts.
The governor motivates all of us the commissioners to excel in our ministries. And we at the Ministry of Environment are grateful to the governor for all the support he has given to us which made us to win the award. We, however, see it as a challenge for us to do more. Our ambition is to win the cleanest state award. We have to keep driving our vision to get there.
Newswatch: Going round Abeokuta and other major cities in Ogun State, we notice that everywhere is clean, what is the magic wand that has made this possible?
Ojeshina: There are two fundamental things. One is that we developed a heightened awareness on the issue of environment. When-we-came we did a jingle on radio for a long time called "Not In My Back Yard, NIMBY" we put to the people's psyche that as the refuse is in your back yard, or your front yard, it is coming to take back your health and your money, and cumulatively, you pay more. But if you pay for it to be taken away from your door step, the money you pay will be much less than what you pay to a doctor because when you are paying N500 monthly in low density area for waste disposal and N200 monthly for high density area, that is insignificant compared to when someone ends up with typhoid or other water borne diseases. By the time we started the enlightenment people imbibed the culture. We were also able to achieve the desired result because in Abeokuta and other major cities in Ogun State, we have used experienced contractors to handle it. And I must say that the support from my boss had been fundamental. So, it is important that the political will has to be there.
Newswatch: Are you thinking of making money through waste management?
Ojeshina: Yes, we are working towards it. It is called waste-to-wealth. That is the fundamental terminology. Wastes only become waste when you have not found use - for them. And we traditionally don't find use for them, In most developed countries, they find use for them. And there are several ways of converting waste to wealth.
We have in the pipeline in Ogun State plans to convert waste generated from electricity to evolve gas and convert it to energy. Some Germans and Americans are talking to us on how to convert waste to energy. There is another one where you can convert to fertiliser. It is called manure. Though the process is called composting, you can convert waste generated from vegetable waste into fertiliser and sell it to farmers. Then you have the issue of recycling where you can take the waste and recycle it. We call it resource re-use. In the US a lot of toilet rolls are from recycled papers. This process is also called waste minimation because you are minimising the waste you have outside there.
But because this administration believes that government has no business in business, we are making it a private-sector driven thing. We want the private sector to know how profitable waste management is. We are starting this with foreign partners who know that it works so that Nigerian entrepreneurs would then embrace the idea.
Newswatch: What legacies would you like to leave behind as the pioneer commissioner of environment in Ogun State?
Ojeshina: I want to be remembered as a member of the team that created a model state. The vision of my governor is to create a model state and I share that vision with him. In my tenure as a commissioner, I want to put in place the necessary structures that people can say that this environment is healthier.
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