The honourable member representing Egbeda State Constituency in the Oyo State House of Assembly, Hon. Olasunkanmi Babalola has called on the state government to launch a sensitization campaign on environmental sanitation and punitive measures for environmental offenders in the state.
The lawmaker who also is the Deputy Majority Leader stated this on Tuesday during deliberation on a motion raised on need to urgently dredge and clear the waterways of rivers in some areas in the state.
According to Olasunkanmi, the indiscriminate dumping of refuse into rivers and waterways in the state has resulted into incidents of floods which inhibits the free flow of water and has led to destructions of lives and properties.
He said: “the previous state government and ministry of environment and water resources made arrangement to dredge 64 streams and blocked drainages across the state as part of efforts to prevent flooding but it is rather disheartening that many people have turned the waterways into dumping sites.
“The people usually perpetuate the heinous act mostly whenever it darks to prevent arrest for environmental offences and these heap of refuses that are dumped on waterways poses great dangers of loss to lives and properties due to eventual flooding.
“There are cited areas in my constituency like Olodo, Oki, Idi-Obi, Gbaremu-Ogbere, Oloba axis, Olode Amuro, Amosun and Isebo areas where annual disasters occur due to indiscriminate dumping of refuse in waterways.
” Also, I urge the government and relevant agencies to provide adequate drainage system, insurance facilities, weather forecast and timely and precise flood early warning mechanism to reduce farmers vulnerabilities to flood disasters and enhancement of livelihood in the state.
The Speaker of the house, Rt. Hon. Adebo Ogundoyin therefore directed the motion to appropriate committee to look into it.
