Ogun shuts market over poor sanitation

The Ogun State Waste Management Authority has shut down the Ijebu-Mushin market in Ijebu East Local Government Area over allegations of indiscriminate waste disposal.

In a statement made available to The PUNCH on Tuesday, the Special Adviser to the Governor on OGWAMA, Hon Farook Akintunde, said the decision became necessary after market leaders repeatedly failed to heed repeated warnings from the agency.

He said, “To make their behaviour unacceptable, they refuse to patronise the PSP assigned to them for proper evacuation of their waste and prefer to dump their waste indiscriminately in the market.

“Despite this, OGWAMA decided to clean the market through mechanical evacuation of their heaps of waste and thereafter provided a roll-on roll-off bin for them to deposit their waste for easy evacuation, but they refused to make use of the bin and continued dumping waste indiscriminately in the market.”

Akintunde added that the government would not allow a few traders to jeopardise public health through poor sanitation.

“The state government, through OGWAMA, will not fold its hands and watch a few traders put the health and well-being of a flourishing town into jeopardy by operating in such a filthy environment,” he said.

He urged traders and market leaders to clean up the market and adopt proper waste disposal practices, warning that failure to comply could lead to health risks, including contamination of goods and the spread of diseases.

Akintunde said the market would remain shut until proper sanitation measures were put in place, stressing that the action was taken in the overriding public interest.

The closure of the Ijebu-Mushin market adds to other similar enforcement actions in the state, including the popular Kuto Market in Abeokuta, which was temporarily shut down in 2022 over filthy and unhygienic practices within and around the market premises.