Whether a tale, myth, joke, story or history, we were told about a white man who visited Ibadan during the colonial era. The white man was on a tour round Ibadan and other southwestern towns. An Ibadan man had been boasting and lordly praising some awesome places in Ibadan; how serene the environments were. After a lot of hype, they took the white man to Ibadan and he felt disgusted seeing the now Kudeti stream. The Ibadan man was hyperbolizing the stream telling the white man that it was more than a stream, it couldn’t just be underrated as the whole of Yoruba knows how powerful the stream is. They still have it in popular aphorism– Ẹni tó bá fojú di Kúdẹtì; ẹbọra á a bọ láṣọ.
The white man looked around the stream, felt disappointed and gave unsavory remarks, “This is too dirty.” He immediately left the stream to save himself from the odoriferous condition and the disease it harboured. The Ibadan man who didn’t want his people to know the white man was not happy seeing their faeces on the stream announced to his people that the white man was happy and that’s why they heard him say TOO DIRTY.
A mirthful teacher told us this story in my primary school in the late 90s while I had never lived in Ibadan except passing through it to Lagos during holidays. Since I heard this story, I always looked out from the bus to confirm my teacher’s claim while passing through Ibadan to Lagos for holidays and it was as it was till now. The narration has not changed so, it makes the story undoubted. No proper effort and development have changed it. The city is physically and fantastically dirty, the waste management is so poor, the people do not care about their waste and the government has not completely succeeded in giving the city the needed beauty. Though current government and the immediate past government put some measures to improve this condition but all proved futile. The situation was improved but not totally okay and enough.
The dirtiness is ironically feast for eyes. It is not hidden from passers-bye’s eyes and motorists’ view. One will genuinely feel bad about the looks of the largest city in West Africa which has become the dirtiest place! The roadside of Lagos-Ibadan expressway since I have known Ibadan has been like a dumping site where everybody remits their trashes and filth. Open defecation which shouldn’t be something of the 18th century is still in vogue in Ibadan city.
During my stay as a student in Ibadan, proper dumping of refuse was a big problem for us. Sometimes, we have to wake up earlier or go to bed late to put our refuse at the roadside or throw it in someone else’s bin which may be the only one on the street before the day breaks. We would be passing and still be recognizing our bin bag by the roadside. Sometimes, when we slept off or forgotten, we would package and take it into the school to throw it in the school bin. Looking at our bin coming up did give us nightmare, get us thinking how we are going to smuggle it out again like a contraband as we felt bad dumping our refuse in the wrong place. It’s my habit since I was a child to take satchet water and put its satchet in my pocket or bag till I find a bin to drop it into, but I later found myself dumping a big bag of waste by the roadside because of the absence right option. You may pass through the front of the University of Ibadan early morning to find lots of these bin bags and have a thought of those ghosts dropping them there. They aren’t ghosts; they are students who can’t eat their trash and find no way to dump it than dumping it there in the late hours of the night or early morning for possible pick up by the State Waste Management Authority which a times takes them days to come. It has been like that for a while and still like that!
Taking some walks around Ibadan, one will be wondered if there is any plan at all by anybody to do anything about the dirty state of the state. Ọje, Bẹẹre, Odinjo, Olomi and the rest of the old Ibadan city are like ruined locations. Open defecation is not a sin around here, the streams running around the town are the comfort zones for defecation, the hollow way on the street are the dumping sites and the jerky building are the improved toilets. Urinating and dumping refuse around building fences and roadsides are normal and those who don’t condone this act put some spell inscriptions on their walls or sign post. Words like ” tọ̀ sí bí, kó o sòfò ọmọ”, “yàgbẹ̀ síbí kó o ya wèrè” and more just to scare people away from dirtying their places.
In Ibadan and many parts of Oyo State including my home town Oyo Alaafin, the culture of neatness and the personal sense of making the environment clean are not the inculcated cultures and the awareness has not reached many. This does not exclude the elites and learners. When others caution them, they are seen as being overzealous. To butress this point and see how disheartening it is, the now Oyo State Waste Management Authority doesn’t reach some areas within Ibadan and some small towns. For the reached areas, they come to empty their bins when they are filled to the brim and waste is being flown to the street. Same culture the people doesn’t have still evident in the workers who are meant to correct it. I have challenged those working around here on this. “Why would you wait till the waste filled the bin and the uncultured people started littering the street before you emptied it?” And their response was that they had some bins at front that were already filled.
Consequently, before they come back, those unfilled bins will be filled and the street will continuously remain untidy.
It is still the same lacking culture in those people that reaches the officials. The same culture that makes a neighbour upstairs to dispose waste on another neighbours downstairs. The culture of cleanliness is absent in bus as drivers and passengers in transit eat and drink, and throw the containers to the street. They alight from the bus to urinate and defecate by the roadside and affect the shop owners who sweep out their waste to the tarred street. Parents do send their kids to defecate at grassed field and uncompleted buildings in their neighbourhood. The same culture affects the Oyo State Waste Management Authority workers who wait for bins to be filled to the brim. They don’t properly cover or not at all cover the opened garbage truck while moving to Awotan landfill site. With this, they re-litter the street again as the truck moves in the blowing wind.
Several governments which have come to power in Oyo State have not been able to find a lasting solution to the waste management in the state. Government does not provide adequate waste management facilities, equip the streets and markets with good bins that will be emptied even before being filled. They should also orientate the people on waste management, its effect on them and their environment. Strong penalty should also be placed on malefactors.
AFTER ALL, THEY ARE ALL MEMBERS OF THE CITY OF KUDETI
Yusuf Alabi, an Oyo Alaafin-born opinion writer and social and political commentator, writes from Ibadan. He can be reached via Alabiyusuf447@gmail.com
