Newspapers and Magazines of different media houses worth thousands of
naira were for three days destroyed under the Flyover Bridge New Parts
Market, Nkpor, Idemili North Local Government Area of Anambra State by
men of the Nigerian Police Station Ogidi following the vendors refusal
to continue parting with some money to the police.
The disobedient policemen carried out the operation on Tuesday
September 23, Thursday 25 and Friday 26 in spite of a letter to the
vendors from the Local Government exempting them from those prohibited
from doing their business there, and also in contravention to an order
by their Divisional Police Officer DPO incharge of Ogidi Police
Station, Mr. H Musa to allow the vendors to do their business.
The vendors were said to have out of pressure to sell their papers,
entered into unofficial agreement to pay the police N2,000 weekly for
them to be allowed to sell their newspapers and magazines under the
flyover Bridge, having been prevented earlier from transacting their
business there on the alleged instruct from the Idemili North Council
Chairman.
Addressing newsmen Monday, Chairman of Onitsha Newspapers Directors
Distributors Association (ONDDA) Mr. Jude Oguzie said "sometime in
July this year we got a report from our vendors selling under the
bridge that they were being harassed by policemen for selling their
papers and magazines under the bridge, and I went with my Vice
Chairman and Secretary Mr. Christian Ikpe and Elder Emma Uwakwe to
meet with the police.
"The police told us during our meeting that they were under
instruction from the Idemili North Council boss not to allow anybody
to sell papers under the bridge, when we probed further to know their
reason for preventing our vendors, the policemen told us that they can
only allow our vendors if we will be paying them N5000 weekly.
"We reminded them that vendors are among the people on essential
duties that are not disturbed even during elections, population
census, national and state sanitation exercise and even time of curfew
but they insisted on being paid, we however, told them that we will
present their demands to the media houses to see if it will be
approved.
"We did not know that the vendors later entered into agreement with
the police to pay them N2000 weekly after initial payment of N5000,
but when it became very unbearable to them they decided to stop and
the police swooped on them and destroyed their papers" said Oguzie.
Mr. Oguzie said when we got this latest information about the
destruction of our papers by the police, we went again to meet them
and to our greatest surprise the police men recognized us and ordered
the vendors who gathered around to leave the scene for them to discuss
with us, and they told us that they cannot allow our vendors unless we
pay them the N5000.
Oguzie said the vendors have been paying the police N2000 since June
this year and they decided not to pay for last week and the police got
angry and resorted to destroying their papers, they did the first day
being Tuesday 23 and we went to the Local government to report and we
were issued with a letter permitting but the policemen ignored the
directive and came the third time being on September 27 to destroy
more papers and claimed that their order came from the Area Commander
in charge of the place and no more the Local Government.
Oguzie said they are experiencing similar harassment from overzealous
local government workers from Onitsha North and South Council Areas
and Idemili North and South Council Areas and we wonder if there is
any restriction for vendors to sell their papers.
"There is no designated place we are told to sell our papers, we hawk
around with our papers, we wonder why we will be harassed this way by
people who should know" he said.
Mr Emeka Onwuzuligo who is the Head of Legal Matters in the LGA said
that the directive was given in error and he has given a counter
directive through a letter that vendors should be exempted from the
order not to do business there.
When Vanguard visited the Ogidi police state to get reaction from the
DPO, Mr H Musa, he expressed anger against the policemen and promised
to withdraw them from the place.
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