Speaker of Ekiti State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. (Pastor) Kola Oluwawole, has, again, appealed to the people of the state to cultivate the habit of taking environmental sanitation seriously, highlighting the importance of proper personal hygiene.
According to a statement by his Special Assistant (Media), Stephen Gbadamosi, in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, on Saturday, Oluwawole made the appeal while monitoring this month’s sanitation exercise across Ido/Osi Local Government Area of the state.
The Speaker noted that the level of compliance of people of the local government was very low and fell short of his expectation.
“At Ifaki-Ekiti, there were a reasonable number of people who were observing the exercise, likewise in Aaye, Ora-Ekiti and Ido-Ekiti. But the situation was different at Ayetoro-Ekiti where many people did not observe the exercise at all,” he lamented.
Pastor Oluwawole frowned at the attitude of some motorists and commercial motorcycle riders in the area who claimed they were not aware of the exercise.
“Every last Saturday of every month is a day set aside for thisexercise in Ekiti State. And there is no excuse of ignorance in law.
We had to arrest a number of motorists and motorcyclists, and seize their keys until after the exercise,” he said, charging local government authorities to ensure that magistrate courts were on ground during the exercise so as to hand over offenders to them for prosecution.
“We are not doing this to inflict hardship on anybody. We are doing it to help ourselves. People should live in clean environments. This will guarantee their healthy living.”
The chairman of the local government, Chief Ayodele Arogbodo, also agreed that the level of compliance with the exercise was not encouraging, thanking the Speaker for his visit to the local government.
He observed that such visit would gear the people in the area towards taking the exercise more seriously.
Packaged by Lanre Olabisi
