The Council for Local Environmental Initiative (ICLEI), an international NGO has lauded the Akwa Ibom Government for sustaining its leadership role in environmental cleanliness in the Nigeria.
The African Regional Coordinator of ICLEA, Mr Ene Owoh, gave the commendation in an interview with the media of Nigeria in Abuja on Monday.
He urged the Federal Government and other African countries to emulate the state in environmental sustainability.
Owoh said that ICLEI Canada captured the Akwa Ibom state April environmental sanitation exercise via satellite, viewed globally by 151 country coordinators of the organisation.
He said that Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDA) NGOs on environment of five selected African countries also appraised the satellite clean-up of the agency.
Owoh described ICLEI as a global network alliance of over 2,500 LGA’s founded in 1990, to provide technical consulting to local governments to meet sustainability objectives.
The Chairman of AKSEPWMA, Mr Prince Ikim, said that the state was committed to effective environmental sustainability, which made it one of the cleanest state.
“We try as much as possible to understand the condition of our environment.
“We engage our people and make them understand that keeping the environment clean is not only the duty of the government but that of everyone.
“We make them to know the penalties of not keeping the environment clean,” he said.
Ikim said that government also ensured that anyone involved in indiscriminate dumping of refuse or any environmental offence was arrested.
The agency’s chairman noted that government had earlier set up a programme in October 2020, to address the state environmental challenges.
“I can say that our commitment is the secret behind being the cleanest state and we will continue to maintain the standard,” he said.
Ikim thanked the state governor for his support and encouragement that ensured that the environmental programmes were efficiently implementing in the state.
