Cleric, eight others jailed for environmental offences
From Victor Akinkuolie, Ado-Ekiti
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A pastor in charge of a pentecostal church in Aramoko Ekiti, Ekiti West Local Government Area of Ekiti State including eight other persons have been sentenced to six months imprisonment by a magistrate court in the town, over various environmental offences.
The pastor, identified as Olaleye Isaac with other defendants who were arraigned before the court convicted for their failure to provide toilet facilities in their residential houses.
Other convicts who are residents of neighbouring communities which include Erio, Ido-Ile and Ilogbo Ekiti, were brought to the court by the Environmental Sanitation department of the local government.
They were also alleged of other sanitation offences like practicing open defecation and refusing to provide sanitary waste bins within their vicinities.
Out of the 18 people arraigned before the court by the Local Government, nine people who pleaded guilty to the offences were convicted.
The presiding Magistrate, Mr. Abayomi Adeosun, sentenced the accused persons to six months imprisonment with options of fines ranging fromN5,000 to N15,000.
The magistrate, who lamenting the environmental nuisance caused by open defecation in the society, said the sentence would serve as a deterrent to others.
He also issued a bench warrant for the arrest of nine
other persons who failed to appear in court on similar offences.
He further directed the police to present them for prosecution on April 25, 2019.
Addressing journalists after the conviction, Chief Prosecutor, Ekiti West Local Government, Mr. Ebenezer Fashipe, lamented that citizensvalued their wealth more than their health.
Fashipe assured that the local government will continue to prosecute households without toilets until open defecation is eradicated in the area.
