Pentouch 
The residents of Ogun State have pleaded with the Ogun State Ministry of Environment to urgently direct the state environmental marshals to return to the road, street and markets as the environmental situations in different communities in the state has degenerated to a very deplorable condition.
Speaking about the development, a community leader in Ota, Ogun State , Alhaji (Chief) Olawale Idris, expressed his worries that since the absence of the environmental marshals people now drop refuse on the roads and in the markets square without hinderace.
He noted that this is posing serious health issues to the residents and that if care is not taken there may be an outbreak of epidemic in the community.
A market leader in Itoku market, Abeokuta, Alhaja Saidat Owoduni, in her own remarks, said that with the environmental marshals no longer patrolling the markets and the various communities nowadays, residents now willingly abused the environment with their indiscriminate dumping of refuse on the roads.
To Mrs Yemisi Awoyelu, a senior staff nurse in one of the private clinics in Sagamu, dumping of refuse on the road median and drainages had become the order of the day since the environmental marshals were no longer seen in the communities by the people.
” The environmental marshals were saddled with the responsibility of not only ensuring the implementation of the environmental law, but also the improvement of the environmental compliance by residents and now that they are not around in our neighbourhood for some days now, refuse has taken over every nook and cranny of our communities.
” We are begging the Ministry of Environment to once again send the environmental marshals to our communities before people start dieing of epidemics and other diseases as a result of refuse that are indiscriminately dumped on our street, roads, markets, drainages and other places”.
According to an Ijebu – Ode based Cleric, Elder Amos Akinsanmi, the Ministry of Environment should please send the environmental marshals to the road, street and markets, considering their role in ensuring a safe and healthy environment in the state.
Elder Akinsanmi,who lauded the achievements of the Ministry of Environment in guaranteeing a healthy environment among the citizenry, however, urged that particular consideration should be given to the return of the environmental marshals in the neighbourhood.
He, therefore, appealed to the Ogun State Ministry of Environment to send the environmental marshals to the various communities and safe the people from refuse now littering every corner of their abode.
