Calabar ‘ill be clean again, Otu assures residents

Cross River State Governor, Sen. Prince Bassey Otu has assured resident of Calabar, the state capital, that the city would soon regain its clean and sparkling status.

The Governor gave the assurance Thursday shortly after inspecting the dump site located along Lemna Road in Calabar Municipality.

Governor Otu said he was eager to tackle the environmental problen of Calabar and restore its past glory as Nigeria’s cleanest state capital.

“I decided to come to the dump site to personally appraise the situation on ground first hand and from what I have seen here, it’s quite pathetic. I must act immediately to address all issues hindering refuse collection, evacuation and proper dump in line with global practices.

“We are putting a proper arrangement in place to relocate the dump site from the city, but in the mean time the site must be manage properly. So, my presence here is to assess the site to enable us deplore the necessary machineries to make it workable in line with current realities.

“Let me use this medium to inform everyone that by the time we put our thoughts to work, Calabar will be clean again”, the Governor said.

Earlier,  the Dump site Manager, Ayi Etim Effiong lamented shortage of the needed machineries to properly manage the site. He disclosed that the site was confronted with both technical and human encroachment issues, saying there was need to keep it safely open for dumps.

According Effiong, “we normally receive all kinds of refuse here, hazardous, toxic hence the need to relocate but since the government has demonstrated a political will to make it conducive for dumps, we will work assiduously to ensure that His Excellency’s planned action is safely executed”

The Governor was accompanied to the site by the State’s Commissioner of Police, Mr. Gyogon Augustine Grimah and other environmental experts.