The caption of this article is befitting, but it isn’t exactly what you are thinking about. It isn’t about the biblical King David and his psalm about going to the house of the Lord. It is all about Hon Sir MacDonald Kelechi Ebere, who is about to overwhelm mountains of general, municipal and medical solid wastes in Imo State.
Last week the incumbent governor of Imo State, Senator Hope Uzodinma, demonstrated a tangible zeal with the appointment of Hon Sir MK Ebere as his Special Adviser on Environment and Transport. The appointment is therefore an icing on another ‘‘cake’’, which is his appointment as the General Manager of the Environmental Transformation Commission (ENTRACO) – a jumbo portfolio. ‘‘To cut a mighty tree’’, says an Igbo proverb and implied by the governor, ‘‘one needs a mighty hand and a mighty machete.’’
The appointment, coming on the eve of Ash Wednesday – with which Christians begin a 40day Lenten period, is a perfect atonement for our degraded environment. Hon Sir MK Ebere is a perfect example of a round peg in a round hole. I say and mean so because of my personal experience of him. But don’t envy him. He has sort of fire in his hands, for his friends, in their hundreds, whom he cannot afford to disappoint.
MacDonald Ebere is a clean cut guy, dating back from time immemorial. If he brings his personal hygiene and cleanliness to bear on Imo State, then the caption of this article becomes an ageless truth. All he needs to do is to possess the state, own and treat it as MacDonald’s. And Imo State will be clean and neat, as MacDonald.
A funny, enviable thing was happening way back, as from 1986, unbeknown to MacDonald Ebere. In those good old days, when boarding schools were boarding school, we lived in the school dormitory, of which St Mark’s was the most prominent. MacDonald lived in St John’s. Students, both seniors and juniors, used to take excited glory at MacDonald’s heels, which sparkled clean, without fissures or cracks. He wore a pair of Scholl shoe, which exposed and made his feet a reference point. His school uniforms were ironed with great precision. All of his indices were superb and enviable.
Obviously some senior students begrudged him. Most juniors looked forward to beholding MacDonald after morning masses – at the refectory, in classes, during breaks, during manual labour, during games and during all other activities – when his superbly ironed shirts, his nails and all other indices shone as if he dwelled in sort of unapproachable light.
Juniors struggled among themselves to collect MacDonald’s dried clothes from the laundry lines because they smelled of roses. I was really going to ask him someday, if I ever set my eyes on him, how he managed to keep up with that adorable habit of clean and well ironed school uniforms, 24/7, in a remote school, school term after term. Personal hygiene is a wonderful habit. It attracts friendships – good spirits or positive energies – the same way nectar attracts bees. It is said to attract jumbo responsibilities too. And we can see it now. One can only give what one really has. I can’t remember if MacDonald grew facial hairs in those days. If he ever did, then he groomed, or rather regimented them and looked smooth. And that’s self-discipline, which is another characterisation of him.
Many years later, I met him in Owerri, in his Sky-blue Mercedes SUV, with his welcoming cheekbone smile. His shirt and nail plate were still sparkling because ‘‘old habits die hard’’. I almost knew firsthand that it was him. The SUV and the collar of the person in my front were as clean and neat as his toes, feet and the rest of him. I called O’boy twice. And twice he answered. It was indeed MacDonald Ebere.
MacDonald, here is my impassioned and subtle charge. If you possess Imo State, treat her as yours, we – Ndi Imo – are good for it. It is ‘‘up and up’’ for Imo State. And it will be a magical plus for Senator Hope Uzodinma, the executive governor of Imo State, who gifted you to Ndi Imo.
Dear MacDonald Ebere, our environment has suffered sufficiently and unduly. I am sure the present heat waves ravaging the land are now tanning your once-upon-a-time smooth and beautiful skin. And it is not funny for anyone. Ndi Imo are local cause of global warming. Global warming, also known as Climate Change, is all about the damaging effects of greenhouse gases or their emissions, released to the ozone layer, from human activities such as industries, agriculture, bush-burning, etc on the atmosphere. The most common of these gases is carbon dioxide (CO2). There are others like chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), ozone (O3), oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and hydrides of carbon like methane (CH4).
Dear MacDonald, presently our greatest headache is air quality. If you doubt me, you can ask Arch-Bishop AJV Obinna or your doctor (GP). Or you can visit Ekeonunwa market. In fact everyone knows about this surely. Air quality is now a global concern as air pollution is one of the biggest threats to health and environment. It has now become a regular global news update, Cable News Network (CNN) for example, in the scale of 1 to 5. This scale represents good, fair, moderate, poor and very poor. Unfortunately Imo State, in Nigeria, is poor and very dangerous at 4 points whereas Accra, in Ghana, is moderate at 3 points. Imo State air quality is twice worse than Accra air quality. According to World Health Organisation (WHO), at 4 points the air contains very high levels of particulate matters less than 2.5ug (PM2.5) and 10ug (PM10), nitrogen dioxide (N2O), sulphur dioxide (SO2) and ozone (O3). Poor air quality affects everyone, including animals, crops, cities, forests, aquatic ecosystems. Bronchitis and cancer are some of the effects I can remember as at the time of writing this ‘‘love letter to you’’. And these two effects are not romantic news.
Some of the visible effects from climate change are flooding as a result of melting glaciers and rising sea level at record highs, wildfires also as a result of rising temperatures and dried and flammable flora, draughts, storms. The secondary effects are seen as global food shortage, mass migrations, death of living things including humans, threat to governments, etc.
Dear MacDonald, I can go further on with factual details with stats and actionable recommendations, but you obviously know now that our lives are in your hands. You can start small, from our state environment, to help our world. You and I were told, times without number, that saints are not those who did extraordinary things in their lifetime. Rather they were those who did ordinary things in extra ordinary ways. Start with the ordinary things, if I may say. I have many things to say to you as a form of recommendation.
Worthy Old boy! Make a name for thyself, as you have been doing, as you did to our young minds in those good old days. Indiscipline, bad personal habits and lifestyle are maiming us in Imo State. Vulcanisers are burning used tyres indiscriminately. Plastics from pure water and other sources have overwhelmed us. Our rivers have been abused terribly, such that Mother Nature now cries: Haba! When Otamiri cries, I hear it loudly from Iho-Dimeze.
But small political willpower from you, some incentives and sanctions can help reverse the ugly trend of things, for good. The installation of recycling facilities, which will include waste treatment and cleaning operations, will not hurt us. Planting twenty-thousand trees won’t hurt either. These things can be done with great precision, the exact methodical way that you fold your long sleeve shirts or the great precision of your ironed cloths or the extra care you give when you shave your facial hairs, when you want to.
I mean Imo State can now heave a sigh of relief in the waste management schemes, such as at landfill sites and the efficient transportation of waste to avoid air, land or water sources contamination. You may now identify and deal with rogue practices of fly tipping. Fly tipping is a wicked way of re-distributing refuse and spreading diseases. I don’t know why rogue motorised janitors do this wicked thing, for a job they are paid for. At the end, there is no useful work done by them. An Igbo proverb tells us, ‘‘When a bird takes flight, off from the ground, and perches on an anthill, it is still on the ground, for it really did not leave the ground.’’ Those rogues are ‘‘a pain in the arse’’, like the ‘‘ignoramuses who gave their mother-in-law some counterfeit money and thought they had spent it.’’ They really didn’t!
Hon Sir MacDonald Kelechi Ebere (KSJI), I rejoiced when I heard them say you have been given the charge. It is all yours now. Good luck!
Contact the writer: kabonuyo@yahoo.com
-Views expressed in this piece are entirely that of the author
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