By Paul Nwosu
Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo’s drive to weed touts out of Anambra State has given a bloody nose to the devil-may-care miscreants. It is of course expected that evil doers would always try to fight back by claiming to be victims. It is against this background that some residents of Okpoko community in Ogbaru Local Government Area of Anambra State recently staged a protest against operatives of the State Anti-Touting Agency (SASA), claiming that they killed some of their residents.
The protesters are not even sure of how many people they claim to have been killed because they keep mentioning any number from one to five. It would have made better sense for them to supply the names or bodies, if any, of the killed persons so that the police can conduct a proper investigation.
Aside from the claims on the alleged killing/s, the protesters also claimed that the operatives, armed with guns and other dangerous weapons, had been raiding their homes in the night to forcefully enforce payment of revenues for the Anambra State Waste Management Authority (ASWAMA) and the Anambra State Environmental Protection Authority (ANSEPA). This is also untrue. These agencies official brief does not include nocturnal assignments.
The self-sponsored spokesman of Okpoko Community Development Union, Chief Raphael Agu, who hails from Arondizuogu in Imo State, stresses that he has submitted a petition titled: ‘Re: Complaint of Commission of Criminal Offences to wit, Murder, Abduction/Kidnapping, Shooting/Killing of Innocent Residents by Anambra State Anti-Touts Group,’ to the State Commissioner of Police, on December 10, 2023.
It is obvious that Chief Agu, who doubles as the Chairman of Anambra Human Rights Guide Association, however, has an axe to grind with the State Commissioner for Environment, Engr Felix Odimegwu, ASWAMA/ANSEPA contractor, Emeka Asoanya, both of them he wants sacked with immediate effect.
The facts behind the issues point to cabals within the Okpoko community, compromising law enforcement agents in the bid to dodge paying the due revenue to the government.
A clear distinction has to be made between touts hiding in Okpoko community and the drive by government agents collecting due government revenues from landlords and sundry residents of the Okpoko community. The two are different. But to score a cheap point, the Okpoko protesters have accused SASA of brutally enforcing environmental levies.
Right from when Governor Soludo came into office, he has devoted so much time and attention to improving the welfare of the erstwhile run down Okpoko slum. It is said that to whom much is given, much is expected. It is crucial that people pay taxes due to government for more developmental work to be done in Okpoko. Insofar as government is giving its all to improve the quality of living in Okpoko, it is only appropriate that Okpoko people should reciprocate the gesture by paying their taxes and lawful levies.
To start with the anti-tout squad is not deployed to collect the revenue of the government. That is not their mission in Okpoko. They were going after the touts who were on the run. The Okpoko sponsored protesters ought not to be mixing up issues. ASWAMA and ANSEPA have their duties to do as opposed to the duties of the anti-tout squad.
It is a sad fact that Okpoko is fast becoming a bastion for armed touting because all the touts displaced from towns such as Ogidi, Obosi and Oba have somewhat congregated in Okpoko and are engaged in dubiously collecting revenues from Okpoko residents that ought to be paid to the government.
The very dangerous syndicate insist on being paid as much as N500,000 if anybody wants to erect a house in Okpoko. Illegal fees are also charged anyone who wishes to dig a borehole or rebuild a house or mend a fallen fence. They insist on collecting levies that Governor Soludo had long expunged from the system.
Even the syndicate leader once had the temerity to ask the government-appointed contractor for waste collection to be paying him N100,000 every month.
Even as the waste collection is onerously done from Sunday to Sunday, the cabals want to be paid the money that ought to go to the government.
The miscreants went as far as burning down the house of the Vigilante Group so that they can have a free reign. They organised themselves and walked up to two kilometres to confront the anti-tout squad.
Their allegation that they were shot at while being addressed by the DPO flies in the face of reason. It is incumbent on the Okpoko protesters to come up with the names of any killed person as they allege so that the police can do the needful investigation and press charges, if any.
Nobody should be allowed to take the law into his own hands, and no one must be allowed to suborn the due process.
Sir Paul Nwosu is Commissioner for Information, Anambra State
