●We will investigate allegation – PPRO
By Emmanuel Ntekim
Waste vendors in Uyo metropolis dealing in condemned iron, discarded plastics, condemned steel, nylon wastes, paper, and cartons materials, often sourced from dump sites, have accused some unidentified police operatives of regularly extorting money from them usually at the point of loading the said items into trucks for movement outside the state.
WatchmanPost gathered that whenever large trucks arrive at the waste sites to load the materials, several police vans would appear to extort money from the scrap businessmen when they are set to transport the waste out of the state. The last truck that came this week to load had two police Hilux vans coming to demand for money, Mrs. Joy Umoh (not her real name), a resident of the area around the scrap site in Mbiabong, Uyo, disclosed.
But at night, young girls will flockinvade the area in search of in search of young men to hook for the night at negotiated prices. They don’t need to go anywhere but to look for any dark place to do their business, Umoh added.
According to Umoh, “There are girls in this area who have become pregnant as a result of these activities. Most of them are secondary school students between aged 15 and 18 years old, who say they engage in these ignoble activities because of hardship. Tjhat is what one of them – young girls told me when I asked her. She simply said that it was hunger that drove her into these night outings.
The girls, according to Mrs. Umoh, are mostly residents of Mbiabong, Ifa, and Etoi. Again, as specified by her, most of the boys doing these things are not the Hausa iron condemned boys, but the young boys who think they ‘belong’ (a coded term for cultists) and, therefore, they are men, including the young ones riding motorbikes. But it’s hunger that is sending the young girls to the streets, she maintained.
Mrs. Umoh, who lives n Mbiabong, explained that most of the boys use the dilapidated structures and unfinished buildings at the abandoned Uyo Ultra-Modern International Market on the Ring Road 3, for their activities. They also make use of the roadside shops that have no lights.
However, Mrs. Chinyere Ukwu, a roadside trader along Ring Road 3, said, I can’t actually ascertain that the girls come here for prostitution. Even though I do see secondary school girls coming here and laughing with boys who hang around here, I’m not sure they are prostituting with them; that I can’t tell. As a mother, I know these girls might be of secondary school age, but Im not sure, and I dont watch what is happening behind me. I’m doing my own business. In the evening, I close and go home.
She raised the issue of insecurity with the non-indigenous boys, noting, For the Hausa boys who are doing the wastes business here, to me, it is part of security. The bad boys in this area believe the Hausas are always armed with daggers and ready to fight and shed blood. They dont sleep; they are always outside. Thats why most timesthe indigenous bad boys avoid them. Because of that, my business here is safe.
She stated further that in Mbiabong Etoi, the Hausa boys do not vandalise properties, but the indigenous youths do, and bring the vandalised materials to the Hausas for sale. Those who do are in partnership with the people here. Anything you bring to them, they will buy.
I’ve noticed that they are not the main people who vandalise people’s properties, but they buy from the vandals. I used to see guys coming to harass them, mostly with someone who sold iron materials to them. Somebody stole something and sold it to them and when uncovered, they will bring the person here to identify who bought the stolen items for recovery.
They will buy it, but if it backfires, they will return and get their money back. They know that the business is risky, but they can’t stop doing it. Plastics and cartons are wastes, but iron can’t be wasted, so they know that some of the iron and steel brought for them to buy are stolen, said Mrs. Chinyere Ukwu.
“For instance”, she continued, “a few days ago, a driver came with a company’s truck hiding iron rods under the tank. From the way he brought out the iron to sell, I knew it was stolen because it was hidden under the company’s truck, she added.
“There was a day someone brought a minibus door and sold it to them in the morning. Later in the afternoon, I saw almost ten motorbikes with three persons on top of each. I was afraid, but they came with someone who had come with the minibus door in the morning.
“When they saw the guy who came with the door in the morning, they returned the minibus door to them. That happened because they were about to break the door to pieces”, she narrated.
But the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Timfon John, in a phone conversation with our reporter, denied the claim that the police were extorting money from the waste vendors, and acknowledged hearing such information for the first time. She promised that the Command would investigate to ascertain the true position.
Further findings by our reporter show that any materials brought to the condemned iron site is reduced to pieces beyond recognition within minutes, particularly if such items include freezers, generators, pots, and steel.
“If your items are stolen and you act quickly, you will get them back. If they are broken into pieces, you will not be able to identify them again”, Mr. Mfon Utuk had confirmed.
A visit to the abandoned ultra-modern international market in Mbiabong Etoi revealed shanty huts and waste sites in different locations within the space now overgrown with weeds and grass.
The market was initiated by Alvard and Moore Services Limited in partnership with Akwa Savings and Loans Limited under former Governor Udom Emmanuels administration through a public-private partnership (PPP).
It was proposed to have a total of 4,644 shops and warehouses classified by sizes as giant, big, medium, and small, on a total landmass of 22.39 hectares.
Sadly, the Udom Emmanuel administration failed to complete it, and abandoned the project, which has become a den of all manner of criminals, thereby posing as a security risk haven to the residents in the area.
