Okechukwu Obeta, the Vice Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Anambra State, was on Thursday arrested by officials of the Anambra State Waste Management Agency for taking photographs of officials impounding people’s property.
The people whose property were confiscated were alleged to have defied the state sanitation laws by refusing to participate in the sanitation programme.
Officials of the agency were also seen arresting owners of the items and pushing them into their official trucks.
Obeta was among the over 70 people arrested in different parts of Awka and detained at the Central Police Station, Awka.
Narrating his ordeal to his colleagues at the CPS, Obeta said that after he had interviewed the Managing Director of the agency, Njideka Oraedum, with other journalists, he tried to take photographs while officials of the agency were at work.
He said that in the process, the managing director personally snatched his ipad.
According to him, other officials in the team snatched the two telephones in his possession and took him to the CPS, where he was put behind the counter.
As at the time of filing this report, Obeta was still being detained, even after the Police Public Relations Officer of the state police command, Emeka Chukwuemeka, had intervened.
Chukwuemeka was said to have explained to Oraedum that the journalist was only doing his work.
When reporters sought her explanation on the development, she refused to make a comment and vowed not to release the confiscated items, adding: “You can go to hell.”
Meanwhile, the premises of the Police Station was like a market place as truck loads of people’s property were deposited there, just as people were trooping into the station to bail their arrested relations.
Most of those affected were food vendors, bread sellers, recharge card sellers, among others, who claimed that they were not aware that Thursday had been declared environmental sanitation day in Anambra State.
Gloria Odo, a pregnant woman, a food vendor at the popular UNIZIK junction, told newsmen at the police station that at the time she closed her business on Wednesday, there was no announcement that Thursday was a sanitation day.
Odo said: “If I knew that today was a sanitation day, I would not have come out.
“I was opening my shop when the ASWAMA officials swooped on me and carried all the food I had cooked to sell and the bags of rice and beans in the shop.
“They also removed all my chairs and tables and the drinks in the cooler.”
Another lady who gave her name as Favour and who sells shoes and dresses, said that goods were removed from her shop and her pregnant sales girl thrown into a waiting ASWAMA truck.
“I am not aware of any announcement by the agency declaring Thursday a sanitation day,” Favour said.
Meanwhile, Isaac Nwosu, an official of the agency, claimed that the exercise was advertised on radio on Wednesday immediately he received the directive.
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