We find corpses, body parts, firearms in refuse bins weekly, says Bayelsa waste management contractor.

Yenagoa—The Managing Director of Brikari Nigeria Limited, waste management contractor of Bayelsa State Government, Mr. Bright Ayebakari, has revealed that weekly the firm officials discover corpses of little children, severed body parts, arms, and ammunition in refuse bins in the state.

According to reports by Vanguard Newspaper, Ayebakari disclosed this when speaking to NDV in Yenagoa, on a program themed “refuse disposal and challenges in the state.”

He noted that the most recent of such discoveries was a human leg found close to the commissioners’ Quarters in the Yenagoa metropolis but added that the severed body part could have been disposed of by a medical facility.

In his words, “In our job, we are not supposed to pick corpses, but we see corpses, we see body parts, we see arms and ammunition at times, these are supposed to be classified. Most times, we see corpses, there is no week that we do not pick corpses of little children.

“Sometimes, the medical facilities amputate body parts, the recent one we evacuated was someone’s leg, an adult, somewhere near the New Commissioners’ Quarters in the state capital.

“I think it emanated from a medical facility located around the area and each time we see things like that, we call the attention of the Commissioner for Environment or the Permanent Secretary and the Police, and if it is a corpse, those agencies will do the needful and bury the corpse.

“Occasionally, we pick arms and ammunition and in such cases, we call the police. Recently, we picked two locally made guns and cartridges and we called the attention of the Special Adviser on Security to the Governor. That is to tell you that our workers don’t want anything to do with crime,” he said.

The contractor maintained that one of the most challenging tasks for his workers in the course of carrying out their duties is having to evacuate human feces, he explained that open defecation is rife in Bayelsa state because most houses in the state have no water system.

According to Ayebakari: “Another thing that results to issues is that we do not have toilets here in some houses, especially the indigenous communities, they do not have toilets.

“They package their human waste in a polythene bag and take it to the refuse receptacles. These are the major issues we are facing. In this part of the world, we do not sort refuse, everything is packed in one place.

“We have medical wastes, organic wastes, metal wastes, plastic wastes, and so on and they are not supposed to be bundled up together, but here, it’s complete confusion because everything is bundled together and we are used to it.

On spirituality and other challenges, the managing director told NDV: “So we see the good, the bad, and the ugly. Sometimes we pick native doctors’ concoctions too. If not for God Almighty, we can have some spiritual problems or issues too. That is the kind of environment we operate in.

“Therefore, we have a complete church in our yard. If you are a Muslim, we give you yours and you manage your beliefs. We have four resident pastors, every morning after preaching and prayers, the safety officer still reminds them of what is expected of every staff.

“Our total workforce is now 728 staff. The job is essential, we work every day, we do not have public holidays, especially we, in the administrative department because we supervise the operations. I, as the managing director, work every day, with no leave.

“In our kind of job, there is the tendency to have an epidemic. So among these 728 staff, we have a medical team, we have a technical workshop called TechShop where we have all kinds of mechanics. We also have welders because we do welding and fabrication. We have fuel attendants, we are self-propelled and we have a complete fuel dump in our yard.

“We are in the front-line, like the Covid-19, they will say when you sneeze, use a tissue and dispose of it in a refuse bin. They will bring all those things to the receptacles and we will pick them up. We know the effects of the kind of job we do, we do not see this job as a contract. I see this job as a call to duty and my contribution to society.

“So we do not see it as a contract, we see it as a service to the people and our contribution to society. I tell my workers, we all work together, the money comes in a pool, and we share and call it salary. We have a complete clinic, laboratory, and pharmacy.

“We also have the fumigation department because before you touch anything, we fumigate; after evacuations, we fumigate again so that nothing will incubate there. In the South-South region, I do not know any state capital that is free from refuse as Yenagoa. I travelled around the country.

“I used to have some friends that will come and tell me that this is not the way to do this job. You do not have to use all the money for the job, this is not how the refuse job is done. In some places, there will be refuse and I ask some of them what they mean by that.

“Another one that is retired now, but used to be a civil servant in the Ministry of Environment would come and tell me; ‘look, this job is not done like this, come and settle us because we are the ones that write the report.

“I told him to leave my office, I am from Bayelsa State, I do not betray, this job is a public trust, do not try to advise me to misbehave because if I advised you to go naked, you will not do it so do not come to advise me,” he said.

He continued: “We can only advise because we do not have the power to enforce. Get your refuse packed, bring it to the designated fenced receptacle and drop it, avoiding indiscriminate disposal of refuse. Those who are supposed to enforce the laws governing the tenants and landlords should let the landlords know that they owe the tenants the obligation to provide toilets.

“Many houses do not have toilets, especially the indigenous people, they must know that the state capital and its environs are a complete urban place. Defaulting landlords should be arrested and prosecuted,” the waste management boss noted.

However, Ayebakari noted that despite the challenges, there are positive things to the work.

“We are not used to attacks, sometimes some public-spirited persons give our boys money. There was a day we even picked US dollars in a bag, but something funny happened.

“We picked this bag of dollars from the refuse receptacles, loaded it, and threw it away at the dumpsite, the driver is not used to dollars, so he said that they were fake dollars.

“Then those who picked it called the local bureau de change operators and when they came, they discovered that they were real currency, and before you knew it, some of them got N5 million, N3 million, and so on. So apart from bad things, we equally see good things too,” he said.