… Urges Obaseki to remove out-of-school children imported from other states from streets
BENIN CITY- The President of Nigeria Union of Local Government employees, (NULGE) Edo State Chapter, Comrade Lazarus Imokhai Adorolo has urged the Edo State governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki to find ways to evacuate the teeming hundred of thousands of out-of- school children roaming the streets of the state.
He made the remark at the celebration of this year’s NULGE WEEK tagged, ” Sustaining An Autonomous Local Government As A Catalyst For National Development”.
Adorolo in his speech said that the Edo State government should reintroduce the monthly environmental sanitation with a view to ensuring cleanliness across the state.
According to him, “We appeal for the re-introduction of the monthly environmental sanitation exercise across the State so as to ensure effective clean up of the State by the local governments”,
“We appeal to his Excellency, to approve the immediate employment of environmental sanitation officers across the 18 Local Government Councils as the Environmental Departments are grossly understaffed due to mass retirement of environmental officers in the last three years”.
” The proliferation of destitute across Edo State is a major source of concern to us as they constitute security threats for our workers. Majority of these beggers and destitutes who are out-of-school children imported from other states will group up to become criminals (robbers and kidnappers on our roads)”.
” When Government enacted the policy on curbing the menace of out-of-school children in the state, we thought that the out-of-school destitute children begging and constituting nuisance on our streets and roads will be evacuated from our state, but those saddled with the enforcement of this policy seem to see these destitute children as sacred cows”.
” Your Excellency, apart from the security threat, these destitute population are a major source of environmental pollution as they defecate on the roads and litter the streets and roads with hazardous wastes. We appeal to you, your Excellency to rid our streets of these destitute persons”.
He however commended the Edo State House of Assembly for the passage of the local government autonomy bill.
“We commend the leadership of the Edo State House of Assembly for the smooth and swift passage of the Local Government Autonomy Bill. We feel proud to tell our colleagues in other states that Edo is among the first states to pass the bill. This is a sign that the rule of law and the doctrine of separation of powers is at play in Edo State”.
