One glaring fact which the people of Rivers State, especially residents of Port Harcourt and its environs will live with in the last five months and counting is that the state is now one of the dirtiest in Nigeria.
Port Harcourt, the state capital, once celebrated as Nigeria’s Garden City, in the last six months, has become nothing but a cesspool of filth. A visitor to the city is greeted with embarrassing heaps of refuse, stench and polluted air, creating an unpleasant site.
At every entry point into the state capital, through the Airport Road, East-West Road, Oyigbo, Rumuokoro and Eleme junction, even the medians of major roads in the city are decorated with garbage strewn all over. The nauseating foul-smelling air oozing from these dumps and its attendant health hazards are clear evidence of negligence and leadership irresponsibility, for a state that is richly endowed. No thanks to the unwise dissolution of boards of agencies and parastatals without a clear solution going forward.
It is therefore not surprising that the recent appointment and inauguration of a management and board for the Rivers State Waste Management Agency (RIWAMA) has brought a sigh of relief to the people of the state and residents alike.
One of the greatest challenges faced by humans in the drive towards development and technological advancement is the management of wastes. As long as there are activities, there must be wastes generated by humans and animals. With the exception of a few advanced countries that have found some solution to waste management, most countries in the developing world are bogged down with very poor waste management.
Proper waste management is a system that involves collection, treatment, and disposal of waste with the aim of ensuring that its final process is not harmful to human and animal life – the ecology and environment generally. This process aims at eliminating to the barest the issue of pollution, especially through solid wastes.
Rivers State, over the years, has contended with the challenges of waste management. Successive governments, be they military or civilian, adopted different methods and measures to ensure proper waste management in a state whose development has been rapid. But, the continuous population increase and the exponential expansion of its capital city of Port Harcourt increased waste generation without a corresponding solution to properly manage the waste generated.
The transition from an Environmental Sanitation Authority to the Rivers State Waste Management Agency (RIWAMA) is yet to yield the magical transformation and re-engineering expected in waste management in the state. A creation of an Act of Parliament in 2017, the agency has the statutory responsibility of maintaining a clean environment by collecting wastes from receptacles and disposing of the same in designated dump sites. Eight years after its creation, the agency can not be said to have impacted so much, as far as its mandate is concerned.
The appointment of the effervescent Dr. Samuel Nwanosike as chairman of the board and Dr. Ibimina Wokoma, who holds dual doctorate degrees in Environment and Sustainability and Development Economics as Managing Director and ten others as members of the board, in a sense gives the people hope that the bad image created in the last five months and counting will be a thing of the past. While Nwanosike brings spirited demeanour to the job, Wokoma brings a blend of academic depth and global insight which would be invaluable to the task at hand.
As expected, the ever-ebullient Nwanosike hit the ground running after the inauguration of the board. Arriving the agency’s office along Ikwerre Road in Port Harcourt, he addressed the media and made declarations. Nwanosike announced the introduction of the monthly environmental sanitation exercise for every last Saturday of the month, between the hours of 7am to 10am.
The new RIWAMA boss also warned that indiscriminate dumping of refuse, particularly on medians of major roads by members of the public is now prohibited and that offendesr would be prosecuted in accordance with the law establishing the agency.
However, while it is true that everyone resident in Rivers State would want to see and enjoy an environment that is friendly and healthy, recourse to knee-jerk approach to waste management, seems to be a rollback to the infamous years of the military and its coercive means of dealing with situations.
A restriction of movement in any form during environmental sanitation exercise is not only archaic, but unlawful. As far back as 2021, a Federal High Court in Port Harcourt presided over by Justice Omotosho had declared as unconstitutional and illegal, the restriction of vehicular and human movements during sanitation exercise. Understandably, Nwanosike may have made a mistake of the head and not the heart in his quick declaration.
Also, the prohibition of dumping of refuse on the median of roads, though totally in order, but without an alternative, seems to place the people in jeopardy. Without an alternative, RIWAMA is merely trying to put the cart before the horse.
While one sympathises with Nwanosike and Wokoma and his board members over the herculean task before them, it is important to advice against using coercion as an instrument against indiscriminate dumping of refuse in the state, illegal trading, and other vices related to environmental abuse. Coercion, which breeds an element of fear and use of force may lead to compliance, but may also lead to resentment if the coercive pressure is removed.
According Friedrich August von Hayek, “it is indeed probable that more harm and misery have been caused by men determined to use coercion to stamp out a moral evil than by men intent on doing evil.” There is a lesson here.
In Nigeria today,there are many states that still observe monthly sanitation exercises without necessarily restricting movement of citizens within the period, yet achieve monumental results. It won’t be out of place for RIWAMA under Nwanosike and Wokoma to undertake a study tour of these places.
The fact is that Rivers State has been on this journey of coercion of its citizenry for a long time without much success and it is about time to think of new ways of achieving results. RIWAMA should adopt an all-out persuasive strategy to get the citizens to understand that a healthy environment is their key to wealth and longevity.
Persuasion is a powerful tool, shaping ideas and actions by appealing to emotions, logic or character. It is the act of convincing someone to adopt a particular belief, attitude, or course of action through reasoning, appeal to emotions. The result is always palatable – voluntary agreement or changing of mindset which can foster trust and positive relationships.
It is for this reason that Ron Paul said, “we should respect each other as rational beings by trying to achieve our goals through reason and persuasion rather than threats and coercion.”
Further expanding the conversation on persuasion as against coercion, the 34th President of the United States of America, Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “to blend, without coercion, the individual good and the common good is the essence of citizenship in a free country.”
In order to succeed, the board and management must consider what changes they will bring to the work. Creative ideas, that will manifestly improve the activities of the agency must be brought to the table as a matter of urgency. The agency should immediately commence steps towards citizens engagement and enlightenment on the best way forward in the management of wastes. It is crucial to put in place a sustained approach in citizens education and engagement. It is one area that had suffered immense neglect in the past. Without citizens buy-in into the policies of RIWAMA, the task of implementation of a viable waste management policy becomes more tasking and less achievable.
As stated by the Sole Administrator at the inauguration of the board, sanitation was an issue of public safety, not mere aesthetics and called on the board to lead a comprehensive and disciplined approach to waste management.
He said: “The task before this board is urgent and enormous. You must lead the charge to rid our cities and communities of filth,” he said. “This is not just about clearing waste—it is about instituting a system of efficiency, sustainability, and discipline.”
He revealed that the government had already procured modern equipment for waste collection and landfill management and was constructing access roads to dump sites to improve operational efficiency.
He challenged the board to explore innovative ways to convert waste into valuable assets such as energy and industrial raw materials.
“Around the world, waste is being transformed into power and products. Our state cannot be left behind.”
One lesson the new board and management must learn, going forward, is that there is a great difference between influence and authority. Influence, which is more important, is about getting others to participate because they feel they are part of something bigger than themselves. If RIWAMA adopts more the approach of persuasion than coercion, it would have done half of its job and Port Harcourt and indeed Rivers State will once again become the alluring Garden City that we all crave.
The new management of RIWAMA must rise to the demands of their calling by ensuring that the challenges, most of which they are aware of, are tackled with great zeal and sustainable commitment aimed at bequeathing to the state and its people a healthy and beautiful environment that will return Port Harcourt to its well known Garden City status.
Indeed, the challenges confronting RIWAMA in ensuring proper waste management are enormous, but certainly not insurmountable. With clear vision, unity of purpose, and thinking outside the box, much can be achieved.
As identified in a paper by Robinson Tombari Sibe and Ian Abraham Gobo titled, “Geospatial Technologies in Waste Management: A Study of RIWAMA”, published in the International Journal of Science and Engineering Applications, the challenges of waste management in Rivers State ranges from shortage of waste contractors, improper mapping out of receptacles or non-existent receptacles, thereby forcing residents to create their own receptacles, zones not properly mapped and based on volumes of wastes generated, detachment of citizens from the waste management process- no framework for citizens engagement and no clear channels of communication.
Furthermore, the lack of technology to enforce compliance was lacking, there was ineffective supervision and performance tracking of contractors, lack of scientific planning and management, low investment in infrastructures, inadequate human capacity for administrative and technical issues, very low public understanding of implications of poor waste disposal, lack of waste collection, treatment and disposal facilities.
Another critical challenge which RIWAMA must confront and conquer is the lack of collaboration in waste management efforts between the government, private sector, foreign investors,civil society, and core professionals in environmental studies and management. This lack of collaboration makes implementing a comprehensive waste management plan that addresses the issues of waste generation, collection, treatment, and disposal challenging.
The new RIWAMA management is expected to rise to the occasion and offer something new and unique in the environmental landscape of the state. This can be achieved if the members understand that their appointment is a call to duty and act to leave legacies that will stand the test of time.
By: Celestine Ogolo
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