The Deputy General Manager in charge of the Umuahia zone of the Abia State Environmental Protection Agency (ASEPA), Catechist Ambrose Jonah, has stated that officials of his agency did not sack any mobile court in Umuahia.
He was reacting to a report that a government mobile court was desecrated in Umuahia on Saturday.
Jonah, in a statement after monitoring the Abia State environmental cleanup exercise for the month of May, explained that officials of ASEPA who were at the Ministry of Environment were only asked to leave the premises of the ministry after a misunderstanding allegedly broke out between ASEPA officials and those of the Ministry of Environment.
The Deputy General Manager said that there was a prior agreement between the Ministry of Environment and ASEPA that all sanitation defaulters arrested by ASEPA should be brought and prosecuted at the mobile court in the Ministry of Environment by ASEPA.
Jonah said that the agreement was not honored by the Abia State Ministry of Environment, and he only directed his men to leave the ministry with the buses they hired, emphasizing that the court was never invaded, nor were offenders freed by ASEPA.
Also speaking on the alleged incident, a top official of ASEPA, Umuahia zone, Nwagbara Macaulay, stated that no arrested sanitation offender was released from court by ASEPA.
According to him, “We don’t have the right and capacity to go to court to ask people to leave, so if they allowed defaulters to leave with ASEPA staff, that is their business.”
Meanwhile, the Abia State Government has urged citizens to respect the monthly sanitation exercise, emphasizing that the present administration is most interested in the good health of the people.
The Special Assistant on Environment to Governor Alex Otti, Professor Ijeoma Iheukwumere, gave this advice after monitoring the monthly sanitation exercise in Umuahia.
The Special Assistant, who described this month’s exercise as successful, lamented that some youths were seen playing football in some streets instead of cleaning their environment.