Employees of the First City Monument Bank at the Muritala Mohammed Road, Ilorin, Kwara State on Monday displayed their commitment and campaign for a clean environment as they left their banking services and cleaned some streets in the metropolis.

Some of the streets they cleaned were Yoruba Road, Unity Road/Obbo Road and streets near the Emir's Palace in Ilorin.

They later donated cleaning materials such as brooms, plastic buckets, rakes and others to the residents to use for their environmental sanitation.

Zonal Head, Osun Zone, FCMB, Mr. Olasunkanmi Olaoye, who is also the Ilorin branch Manager of the bank, said the purpose of the exercise was to remind the residents of the importance of sanitary environment.

He said good environment would reduce epidemic outbreak, adding that only a healthy person could be productive and wealthy.

He appealed to corporate organisations to emulate FCMB's gesture by giving back to the society.

Olaoye commended the state government for ensuring a clean environment and urged it not to relent.

He said, "We have a lot of things that we give back to the environment but we feel in Ilorin, we can quickly impact our immediate society by ensuring that we have a clean environment.

"When we have a clean environment, malaria, cholera and other communicable diseases and epidemic will be a thing of the past and people will go to hospital less. By that, we would have much more money to keep in our pockets.

The Commissioner for Environment and Forestry, Mr. Anthony Towoju, said the bank's sanitation exercise was in tandem with Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed-led administration's policy.

He stated that the governor was encouraging public–private partnership to facilitate cleaner environment and enhance the life span of the people.

Towoju said, "What FCMB has done is a good partnership. They have demonstrated that they are very good corporate citizen because we all know that cleanliness is next to godliness.

"We believe that if our people imbibed the culture of cleaning their shops, offices and homes, we will be definitely chasing away diseases and health hazards and we will have a very good environment."

One of the community leaders on Yoruba Street, Alhaji Rafiu Agunbiade, said members of the community appreciated the bank's gesture.

He advised the residents to be law abiding and always ensure that their surroundings were kept clean.