Let’s keep Juba clean slogan transcends in our daily lives

[Atok D Baguoot]

By Atok Dan Baguoot
“Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I
wish we may be permitted to pursue it”, Thomas Jefferson.

With rise in plastic bags importation to Southern Sudan, “Keeping Juba
Clean” through do not litter slogan will emerge as one of the most
frustrating tasks to execute all over towns in the entire Southern
Sudan but until it is virtually owned by the populaces, the fight
against health hazards would remain a tough war to achieve after
corruption. It takes personal efforts to keep the vicinity of your
compound clean, something regarded as prerogative to family hygiene.
By doing so, one distance away mosquitoes whereas, air ventilating
through your compound becomes as fresh as day time breeze in the
valleys.

It is a common known fact that most of our imported packed foods are
sealed in either polythene plastic containers or canned/bottled an
instrument which is more hazardous to our health than even quality
nutrients provided by those foods because end life of these materials
in our reach tends to contaminate efficiency of nutrients in our body
systems. The vicious cycle pose upon us by the environment we live in
is tentatively equal to threats pose by weapon of mass destruction.

Clean environment means living friendly in a healthy mind and body as
healthy citizen is an asset of his/her nation. For us to be as
productive as we can, we need to treat our ecosystem with lot of
respects and caring so that it’s in return provides us with friendly
products for our daily bread. It is in the environment that these
already baked breads emerged first in different forms. Children can
never know how bread and milk come in their present forms.

If there is where we have really perfected since Comprehensive Peace
Agreement was inked on paper in 2005, it is in littering and dirtying
our environment with different kinds of non degradable polythene
plastic papers and cans/bottled to the extent that our surround looks
incompatible with our natural senses. Today if one is to use a small
piece of land for cultivating simple vegetables, one has to remove
thousands of plastic papers before you do that job before considering
direct infertility effect caused by these materials to the soil.
Plastic papers defined as none degradable burn up the micro living
organisms that catalyses fertility of the soil hence, resulting into
poor yield or no yield at all.

One upon a time while walking in Juba town, my eyes came in an
unexpected contact with mountains of garbage almost everywhere in the
whole town, so I had to ask myself what if such a situation persists
for some more years while waiting for referendum of the South, the
answer in mind was that Juba like any other city in South Sudan would
produce people whose senses can operate well in a dirty environment
because overstay in our wrong made environment would acclimatize us as
enemies of clean environment and the likelihood of us becoming like
bushy animals is there.

In recognizing our positive deeds to the environment, governor of
Jongeli State, Kuol Manyang Juuk had earlier on issued a policy of
keeping Bor town clean with a slogan “per every empty bottle dropped”,
you go around collecting ten more empty and take them to their
rightful places since we don’t reuse them nor do we have a policy of
recycle and reduce which is called the 3Rs, Reuse, Reduce and Recycle.
Due to that attempt, death of cattle having swallowed plastic papers
has tremendously reduced thus, cattle keepers are no longer reporting
rampant death of animals around town, besides improvement in general
environment of the town.

Another town with concrete policy of keeping the environment clean is
Unity State in which governor Taban Deng Gai issued a decree that
banned the sale of plastic bags in town. Portable goods are sold in
grey paper envelope in Bentiu town, making it almost the cleanest city
in Southern Sudan, though other towns have not imitated that policy of
keeping Bentiu clean. Thanks to the two governors for having shown
spirit in protecting unfortunate environment. By the way clean beer
needs clean environment so that it does clean and excellent job of
confusing our minds well.

Besides impeding crop farming, animals’ husbandry becomes the worst
hit by rampant plastic bags everywhere in Southern Sudan and given
high demands of meat in our society, if cattle continue dying on daily
basis, there would be declined in meat supply to the markets causing a
situation of us becoming man eaters.
Therefore, this workable slogan of keeping Juba clean tantamount to
keeping our health clean from attacks by tropical diseases which are
directly associated with ill health environment. It is a healthy call
to all responsible citizens who mine of their hygiene as we all
boastfully swagger in our clean attires along freedom corridors. Being
clean also deserves special attention like the referendum because
diseases would never have time to negotiate another referendum with us
unless we do it wholeheartedly.

Atok Dan is a journalist working for Southern Sudan Radio and is
reached at atokb...@gmail.com/0955410005.