Faced with stiff opposition from law enforcement officers on the introduction of environmental guards, Cross River State Government has renamed the state’s non-armed bearing outfit, the Green Police to Green Sheriff.
Governor Ben Ayade also urged residents of the state to ensure cleanliness and sustain greenery initiative or face prosecution.
Ayade noted that the new outfit “Green Sheriff” must serve as an environmental neighborhood watch by ensuring that every resident of the state and Calabar in particular keeps his or her environment very clean.”
He explained that “the Green Sheriff’s responsibilities will include general sanitation check, nursing and planting of trees, ensuring that refuse bins are evacuated as and when due, report erring wastes evacuation contractors as well as arrest persons who litter the environment.”
Other roles the governor enumerated were to stop deforestation, afforestation supervision while ensuring that irrigation contractors water all trees.
He said: “Cross River is the cleanest state in Nigeria and unarguably the tourism destination of the country, it is imperative that the cleanliness needs to be sustained.
“In doing this, my administration has made it very clear that we will have zero tolerance for an untidy environment as we lay emphasis on cleanliness, knowing full well that cleanliness is next to Godliness”.
According to him, those who own property in Calabar must keep their environment tidy and “if you are seen littering or dropping sweet wrapper, you will be picked up by Green Sheriff. So ensure that there is no littering as the greenery of Calabar must be sustained.”
The governor who disclosed that Calabar has been divided into 39 segments with contractors attached to sustain the environmental policy, posited that “we must maintain that dignity, image, class and elegance that Calabar is indeed the cleanest city.”
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Guardian