Fadekemi Ajakaiye
The Registrar, Environmental Health Officers Registration Council of Nigeria Dr. Dominic Abonyi has said that sanitation is not an adhoc situation, adding that sanitation is a living subject, a living science and a living art.Â
Dr. Abonyi made this assertion recently in Abuja when a team of journalists visited him in his office to find out the state of environmental health across the country in view of Lassa fever epidemic ravaging some states.Â
The Registrar recalled the outbreak of Ebola and how swiftly Nigerians resorted to washing their hands with soap and water and also capping it up with hand sanitizers.
He then urged Nigerians to be conscious of their environment because diseases can be there at any time and place, saying, “you can contact a carrier and you can equally contact an active case.â€
According to him, “Every Nigerian should think sanitation, act sanitation, live sanitation and teach sanitation adding that, the presence of risks is dependent on our predisposition to act right at every time.â€
Abonyi, however, lauded the federal government for assisting the Council in offering technical assistance across the country in some selected schools by given quality training models for enhanced capacity building, saying “the Council was committed to producing quality manpower and increasing advocacy at all levels, both at local level, state and federal level.â€Â
He commended the Kogi state government’s approach to embrace corporate environmental health practice to address sanitation situation and, therefore, called on other states of the federation to borrow a leaf from what is happening in Kogi.Â
In the area of fines, Abonyi noted that, the public health laws are a little obsolete but not ineffective. According to him, “Tthe problem of enforcement generally is that, going through the legal processes of charging somebody who has insulted the environment through the litigation processes encumbers the processes.â€Â
He further hinted that, the environmental health control Bill, which the house passed recently, would address the aging regional laws to bring back the sanitary laws and bring them into present day reality and impose adequate fines.
According to him, “Every Nigerian should think sanitation, act sanitation, live sanitation and teach sanitation adding that, the presence of risks is dependent on our predisposition to act right at every time.â€
Abonyi, however, lauded the federal government for assisting the Council in offering technical assistance across the country in some selected schools by given quality training models for enhanced capacity building, saying “the Council was committed to producing quality manpower and increasing advocacy at all levels, both at local level, state and federal level.â€Â
He commended the Kogi state government’s approach to embrace corporate environmental health practice to address sanitation situation and, therefore, called on other states of the federation to borrow a leaf from what is happening in Kogi.Â
In the area of fines, Abonyi noted that, the public health laws are a little obsolete but not ineffective. According to him, “Tthe problem of enforcement generally is that, going through the legal processes of charging somebody who has insulted the environment through the litigation processes encumbers the processes.â€Â
He further hinted that, the environmental health control Bill, which the house passed recently, would address the aging regional laws to bring back the sanitary laws and bring them into present day reality and impose adequate fines.
