Delta State, once known for its lush green spaces and vibrant communities, is now facing a silent but dangerous crisis — the steady collapse of environmental sanitation across its 25 local government areas.
At the center of this unfolding story is Ughelli, where respected journalist and publisher of SouthernVoice News, Godwin-Maria Utuedoye, has raised the alarm. His findings reveal that what should be a monthly act of public health and civic responsibility has turned into a performance of lawlessness, extortion, and government negligence.
Every last Saturday of the month is designated as Environmental Sanitation Day, when residents are mandated to stay indoors between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. to clean their surroundings. However, what really happens tells a different tale. In Ughelli and other towns across Delta, sanitation has been reduced to a hollow ritual, marked more by roadblocks and intimidation than real cleaning or public education.
According to Utuedoye, instead of deploying trained environmental officers to enforce hygiene rules and sensitize the public, touts, thugs, and political loyalists are empowered by local governments to take over the process. These individuals, often working alongside unauthorized task forces and even some security agents, use sanitation day as an opportunity to harass, extort, and sometimes assault citizens — not to clean the environment.
In one instance, Utuedoye himself was stopped and threatened by a group of these men while monitoring sanitation in Ughelli, despite being on official journalistic duty. “They told me journalists have no business coming out during sanitation,” he said. “It took the intervention of another reporter to prevent me from being beaten.”
This disturbing trend isn’t limited to media practitioners. Even top government officials aren’t spared. The Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly was reportedly delayed and harassed during one of these sanitation exercises, and only regained passage after the local government chairman stepped in.
Blocked gutters, overflowing waste, and foul-smelling drains are still a common sight across Delta State. In some neighborhoods, water from soakaways and kitchens is deliberately channeled into roads and public drains — a result of poor supervision and the absence of environmental enforcement.
What’s worse, residents are left in the dark, with little or no awareness about the importance of a clean environment. The very people employed to lead these efforts — often chosen for their political loyalty, not their qualifications — are either ill-equipped or completely uninterested in genuine sanitation work.
“We are seeing a dangerous shift where sanitation officers are more concerned about collecting fines and showing off than doing real work,” Utuedoye emphasized. “This is not just mismanagement; it’s public endangerment.”
Critics argue that these lapses are part of a larger system failure. The Ministry of Environment and local government councils appear to have no long-term strategy for sustainable sanitation. There’s a glaring lack of:
- Consistent public education campaigns,
- Community engagement,
- Home inspections with empathy and respect, and
- Transparent deployment of resources.
Instead, sanitation is treated as a monthly performance, driven by photo-ops and noise-making — not results.
This widespread dysfunction has consequences. Poor sanitation leads to flooding, disease outbreaks, and environmental decay. The health risks, especially to children and the elderly, are enormous. Worse, the lack of accountability encourages the very behaviors the exercise is meant to stop — littering, indiscriminate dumping, and reckless discharge of waste.
If Delta State is to return to its path of cleanliness and public discipline, serious reforms are needed:
- Employ and empower trained environmental officers, not loyalists or thugs.
- End the culture of intimidation and extortion during sanitation days.
- Launch statewide awareness campaigns through schools, markets, religious institutions, and the media.
- Monitor streets with professional inspectors, not agberos.
- Hold local government chairmen and environmental officials accountable for results, not rhetoric.
Environmental sanitation should never be a weapon used against citizens. It should be a shared responsibility — one that starts with the government leading by example.
As things stand, what’s happening in Ughelli is a mirror of the state’s wider problem. If not urgently addressed, Delta may pay a high price — not just in reputation, but in public health and human dignity
