As part of measures to restore sanity to Lokoja, the Kogi State capital, Governor Yahaya Bello has revealed that road side markets and trading along walk-ways would soon be a thing of the past, assuring however, that government would create designated areas to relocate the traders.
The Governor, who disclosed this recently in Government House, Lokoja, while receiving the report of the state task-force on forestry, explained that there was need to clean up the city, by giving it a status befitting of a state capital.
Governor Bello, who said the preservation of the environment would top the agenda of his administration, berated the spate of reckless trading activities carried out on the walk-ways in the state capital, pointing out that the trend, if left unchecked, poses grave environmental challenges and traffic problems for the state.
On the Dangote Cement Company in Obajana, the Governor expressed fear on the likely environmental challenges the cement industry could cause the state and residents of Obajana community through cement dust pollution, saying that the state government would engage the company with the aim of ensuring that their activities comply with global best practices.
Part of what the state would demand from Dangote Cement, according to the Governor, would include, compel the Company to reclaims areas where it had excavated in the process of exploring limestone in order to make the areas habitable again.
These steps, he said, would extend to other solid minerals exploration in the state by forcing them to comply with required global best practices.
He enjoined the people of the state to support his administration to realise its laudable vision for the state, adding that the task of rebuilding the state to the desired height requires the selfless and committed participation of all and sundry.
Credit: Graphic
