The scheme is environmental friendly and safe. We have distributed flyers on how the market women will go about it and how it works. What we do is to have the fumigation when the market is closed, that is from dusk to dawn. What the market women will only come to see are dead rats.
Benson, whose company is partnering with the state government in the project made the assertion on the sidelines of the flag off of the exercise at Obalende Market on Thursday.
“They will not realise anything untoward, the only evidence are the dead rats which we have warned them not to pick with bare hands. They should pick them with hand gloves. We will be on ground to evacuate the dead rats and bury them. We are not going to incinerate them but we’ll rather bury them.
“Dead rats decompose to sand within six months,’’ he said. “The programme has to be monthly because rodents have a life cycle of a month. If we say we want it quarterly, that means what we are doing will be counterproductive. We don’t want any breeding place for these rodents in our community again, so, the campaign will be rigorous to ensure that we live in a safe environment.
“In the light of this, we are also looking forward to having environmental champions who are to compete on having the best record in this effort aimed at a vector-free environment. We want each local government to produce champions which will show what they are contributing to make the environment safe. This will encourage many others to follow suit,’’ he said
