The Abia State Government has sealed a residential building at No. 16 Ibadan Road, Aba, after human waste was discovered packaged in bags and basins and stored within the premises.
The government team, comprising the Commissioner for Environment, Mr. Philemon Asonye Ogbonna; Commissioner for Health, Prof. Enoch Uche; and Deputy General Manager of the Abia State Environmental Protection Agency (ASEPA), Aba Zone, Elder Okezie Ezengwa, inspected the premises on Thursday.
The officials expressed concern over the poor sanitary conditions in the area and warned residents against practices that could endanger public health.
Speaking during the inspection, Commissioner for Environment Ogbonna condemned the practice of packaging human waste in bags and storing it within a residential environment. He said the Abia State Government, under the leadership of Governor Alex Otti, would not tolerate activities capable of exposing residents to health risks.
Ogbonna explained that the premises was sealed to enable the government to investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident. He disclosed that the landlord and occupants of the building had been invited for questioning as part of the investigation.
The Commissioner also advised residents of neighbouring buildings to adequately boil their drinking water as a precautionary measure. He described the incident as a wake-up call for sanitary inspectors across the state to intensify environmental monitoring.
Also speaking, the Commissioner for Health, Prof. Enoch Uche, said the government had not found evidence that anyone had contracted a disease as a result of the situation.
“Right now, we are happy that nobody has contracted any disease from what we are seeing. What we are doing now is to prevent it.”
Uche urged residents who encounter similar sanitation problems in their neighbourhoods to promptly report them to the relevant authorities.
In his remarks, the Deputy General Manager of ASEPA, Aba Zone, Elder Okezie Ezengwa, said the building was discovered during routine environmental monitoring as part of the agency’s campaign against manual sewage evacuation.
The government team also collected water samples from the area for laboratory analysis to determine whether the incident had affected the safety of water sources in the neighbourhood.
