Okwe Obi
The business of recycling is one that has continued to attract the interest of many Nigerians, especially those who are unemployed or those who are in need of another source of income for a better life.
Although the business on its own is really lucrative mostly for entrepreneurs who have human resources and financial wherewithal to hire people who can visit dump sites in search of cans, plastics, aluminium, leather wears, papers, bottles, polythene bags and condemned electrical appliances. But of recent, the mishandling of these wastes has continuously dent the environment of the country’s seat of power, an act perpetrated by waste collectors and handlers.
These people, in most case, because of their inability to purchase modern equipment, resort to dumping these wastes, particularly cans on the road for vehicles to trample and flatten them, given residents cause to worry.
On Orji Uzor Kalu Close In Mabushi, near Wuse 2, there are heaps of used bottles and other wastes. Sometimes the road is blocked forcing vehicles to either park before the wastes or leave the street. The close houses top notch houses and recreation centres.
Few kilometres away from the road, lies another recycling spot where, on face value is inhabitable for animals not to talk of humans because of the widespread of trash on the way coupled with poorly constructed houses.
A security guard, Mohammed Adamu, who lives in the area, said: “These people who dump all kinds of stuffs mostly in uncompleted buildings normally have issues with Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB), officials whenever they come to raid the area. There is no uncompleted building in this area you do not find them or their wastes inside. And when it rains, the environment smells because most of them do not cover their recycling products. And you find scorpions, rats, cockroaches rattling neighbours at night.”
An agent in one of buildings who gave his name as Shehu, narrated how he had a titanic battle with some of them who occupied his building in his absence, which he claimed that they messed up: “These people are everywhere. In fact, they are nomadic in nature. Even when they occupy your house, aside defacing it with rubbish, they literally colonise it by bringing in their family members and friends to live with them, and making it difficult for you to eject them.
“When they eventually leave, you still find things that ordinarily should be in trash cans. And it cost a lot of money to hire people to clean up the environment. So it better a large portion of land be earmarked for them to avert the reccurrent littering of the environment.”
But Alhaji Kabiru, who is into the business disclosed how he has been able to train his seven children in primary and secondary schools, countered those who accused them of defacing Abuja. He admitted that the business is an aberration to hygiene and sanitation in the sense that labourers are paid to pick up waste products confined to dustbin. He suggested that instead of government through its regulated agencies to clampdown on them, a portion of land should be provided to enable them showcase their handwork:
“People speak ignorantly because they do not know how profitable recycling business is. We have been harassed and beaten; our products burnt all in the name of us contributing to dirty Abuja. Some people say we use the business to habour Boko Haram members and hide weapons. But after inviting the Joint Task Force (JTF) to search, they find nothing.
“Government should help us with land and funds. We are not asking for money to feed but money to enable us buy our equipment. There is so much money in recycling business. We are not criminals or Boko Haram members. We have an association where we register people. And we know ourselves. We cannot habour criminals because we know the implications.”