The Kogi State Sanitation and Waste Management Board (KGSSWMB) has warned urban residents to manage their domestic animals such that they do not constitute nuisance.
General Manager of KGSSWMB, Mallam Sani Abdulganiu, gave the warning during an interview with The Graphic correspondent, Birdget Alabi, in his office in Lokoja.
Abdulganiu warned that some animals, when left to roam the streets of Lokoja, increases the potential exposure of residents to zoonotic disease like rabies that are transferred to humans through dog bites.
He explained that the Kogi State Sanitation and Waste Management Board (KGSSWMB) Law 2013 criminalizes the act.
The law provides for payment of fine within 48 hours and option of auction by the Board after 3 days.
He stressed that most of these animals which are supposed to be kept in a confined environment and fed by their owners are left to fend for themselves thereby causing a public nuisance and littering the environment.
“We have said this so many times that whoever owns pets should keep them in a confined environment or cage, do not allow them to roam the streets of Lokoja because they go about constituting public nuisance, destroying peoples crops or ornamental plants use to beautify the streets,” he said.
Recall that in 2017, the state government launched ‘operation arrest all stray animals’.
On February 10, 2017, the state government arrested four goats, four sheep and two kids at the premises of the new State secretariat in Lokoja.
