I remembered those days I used to work in Lagos and I smiled to myself because life indeed they say is a stage. Those days on my way to work, I see the road sweepers already at work doing their thing while most of us were still asleep .
These women, just to earn a living come to work at wee hours of the morning to sweep the mess made by people who claim to be civilised. Most of them though elderly, made me wonder why their children would allow them do this kind of job.
One this fateful day, as I set out for work something bad happened. One of those women was run over by a commercial bus while she was on duty and died on the spot. The worse of it was that the bus driver never stopped to see what was left of her remains as people gathered to move her lifeless body away from the road.
Seeing the incident happen right before my eyes, I cried my heart out, “this woman died this day just because she wanted to earn a living oh God why”, I queried as tears kept on rolling down my cheeks.
My whole day was messed up as the scene kept repeating over and over again in my head. I resolved that I will never have to litter the road again because if we are civil enough, we won’t have to litter the roads with any garbage of ours and that incident changed me.
People litter the roads with all pleasure just because they know someone is paid to clean the mess. Some say it’s the government’s work to see to the mess, while I ask “would you mess up your house intentionally just because you know someone is there to clean it up every time you do?”
Many of us are guilty of this and don’t see anything wrong with it because they don’t care about the effects of these waste materials on the environment. That is another day’s gist.
What is very disturbing is that most of the people who do this are literates yet still throw out wastes from their vehicles. We should learn to set good examples and penalise those guilty of this for us to have a healthy and clean environment.
Orientation agency should embark on sensitisation programs and start educating the people. Let’s make it a habit not to litter our roads. If you have your rubbish keep it in your bag until you find a refuse dump to dispose it. Commercial vehicles should be compelled to have trash bins in them for passengers to throw their garbage and necessary authorities should charge defaulters.
This clamour for a better Nigeria begins with you and me so let’s be responsible.
With Love,
Tricia Iwuoha
