By Bridget Tikyaa
Six months is not long enough to assess the performance of a public servant, not because nothing could be achieved within such a time, but just to give enough time to justify whatever ranking one may come up with. In spite of that, when someone shows sparkles of excellence, the brightness often surrounds everyone and everything such that we don’t often wait to ask for how long, but how did this miracle happen. This is what has happened with Nashima Jennifer Daniel, the General Manager of Benue State Environmental Sanitation Authority.
Appointed on the 8th of July, 2024, The GM seems to have been there longer than the six months she has been on the saddle of the sanitation agency. It has been six months of sparkling hard work, upgrading the authority’s infrastructure, equipping it, motivating the staff members, and making the streets much more clean than before.
Benue State Environmental Sanitation Authority, BENSESA, is an agency that is saddled with the responsibility of ensuring that the state is clean and healthy within the confines of the law. It carries out enforcement, awareness campaign, inspection, monitoring, supervision, and prosecution, all geared towards having sparkling communities across the state.
“When I took over office in the month of July 2024. I met a moribund system in terms of broken down trucks, inadequate manpower and working tools. For the past six months, we have been doing a whole lot of remodelling, digitalization, and provision of mobile public toilets. We also had a moribund lab, which we are currently fixing.
“One of the achievements we were able to carry out is the remodelling of the administrative building. We met it in a very dilapidated state. We were able to remodel and furnish the administrative building. Also with the support of His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Benue State, we were able to access grants and we refurbished three broken down trucks for use in carrying out our waste management operations in the state.
“We were also able to equip ourselves for the very first time in a very long time in the history of Benue State Environmental Sanitation Authority. We have been able to carry out the training of our staff and kitted them up with the proper apparatus for work, which I call their personal protective equipment, like hand gloves, nose masks, helmet, overall, to be better prepared to carry out the business of general town cleaning as is saddled on us.”
Indeed, achieving all these in six months is outstanding. It takes an administration with a vision for excellence like that of Governor Hyacinth Alia, to match in step with the expectations of the populace, achieve it, and set new targets.
The new target set by her is the complete mapping of Makurdi, the state capital, for ease of refuse collection and other sanitation activities. This, she has been able to complete successfully.
“We did a delineation of Makurdi, the Benue state capital, for ease of operation. We have divided Makurdi into eleven zones as it was initially advised, and we have been able to have a full coverage of refuse collection in the state. We keep on sensitising the public to ensure that there is a high level of compliance in keeping their premises clean and there is a high level of compliance in adhering to the environmental sanitation laws of the state.
“There is so much more that we are going to be doing. The digitalization phase of BENSESA is also going on. For the first time in history of BENSESA, we have our presence on all social media platforms; WhatsApp, Instagram etc, for ease of dissemination of information and to be able to get responses from the public when they have issues regarding environmental sanitation.”
One of the key components of sanitation is ending open defecation, a task the sanitation agency is also actively engaged in, with an appreciable level of success.
“We are doing much more. Our next project will be the construction and installation of mobile toilets across the state. We are aiming to achieve an open defecation free state, not just in some selected local government. Last year, we were able to register and achieve an open defecation free status in about three local governments in Benue State. We are looking at having that in the total twenty-three local governments in the State,” the General Manager said.
Like everything that has to do with public health, achieving set targets will require collective efforts, not just letting the government execute the tasks alone. It is very imperative for residents to be fully aware of their responsibilities when it comes to the issue of sanitation, because when citizens play their part, it makes it easier for government agencies to also do their parts diligently, and even much more easier to hold government to account.
“We have so much to do. It is not just the responsibility of the agency alone. We urge all the Benue populace to sit up and get ready to be responsible. Individuals and the Benue public at large have the responsibility to keep neat surroundings. We are also pleading that we are going to be enforcing and using all means within the confines of our laws to be able to reach out and offer better service to the public.
“The goal has always been to have a clean, great, and healthy Benue State. Benue is clean now and we will keep pushing, and we will consistently sustain this operation as it is expected, because it is a responsibility saddled upon us,” The BENSESA general manager said.
Bridget Tikyaa is the Principles Special Assistant to the Governor on Media Publicity and Communications Strategy
