The Edo State Government has begun the process of establishing mobile courts to try environmental sanitation offenders.

The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Public Utilities, Maj. Lawrence Loye (retd.), who stated this at the inauguration of the state Technical Committee on Environmental Sanitation in Benin on Wednesday, said the state would no longer tolerate shoddy handling of environmental matters.

He said, “We are working on the introduction of mobile courts to address issues of environmental sanitation offences, where offenders will be tried in accordance with the law.

“The magistrate will be in the mobile court, we will move from street to street. We look forward to bringing environmental standard in the state to an acceptable level comparable with what is obtainable in other parts of the world. We want to see the cities neat and I promise all that it is not going to be business as usual.

“My advice is to encourage all to work as a team, build the structure of enforcement and address illegality associated with enforcement.

“No enforcement team will be allowed in any local government area without the supervision of the technical committee, to avoid cases of extortion and other untoward acts.

“For environmental sanitation, its either you are part of the team or outside of it. If you’re not part of the technical committee, you cannot enforce.”

The Secretary to the State Government, Prof. Julius Ihonvbere, expressed dismay at residents’ attitude towards environmental sanitation, “despite government’s huge investment” in the sector.

He said, “We have taken environmental issues very lightly in the state, and even during environmental sanitation, people just stay back at home and wait for time to elapse.”

One of the traders in Gatankowa market, oke-odo, Lagos, Taofeeq Shobulo, is to serve six months prison terms, for allegedly urinating in a pot of soup and provoking breach of peace on the 17th of January.

The 38-year-old convict, who pleaded guilty to the charges, was sentenced on Tuesday by an Ojokoro Senior
Magistrates’ Court.

His prosecutor, Lugard Ahonle told the court that “Shobulo had asked the food vendor, Olayiwola Olayemisi, to sell food to him on credit which she refused because, according to her, the accused was fond of eating without paying.

“The accused later came back while the food vendor was not paying attention and urinated into her pot of soup,’’ he said.

The prosecutor noted that the offence contravened Sections 136 and 411 of the Criminal Code Laws of Lagos State.

Presiding over the case, the Magistrate K. O. Ogundare sentenced the trader to six moths imprisonment saying “having found you Taofeeq Shobulo, guilty, you are hereby sentenced to six-months imprisonment which will be served concurrently.”