The Sole Administrator of the Rivers State Waste Management Agency (RIWAMA), Bro. Felix Obuah has vowed that all those involved in manhandling officials of the agency and vandalizing the agency’s vehicle, while carrying out their legitimate duty along Iwofe Road, Rumuolumeni last week will not go unpunished.
Obuah who stated this in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Jerry Needam regretted that the attack on the sanitation officers and vandalization of the Agency’s vehicle have continued despite repeated appeals to members of the public against violation of sanitation rules.
The RIWAMA boss disclosed that the sanitation officers who were on their routine Waste Surveillance and Monitoring Exercise in the morning, were attacked and the Agency’s vehicle badly damaged when they tried to arrest one Kelly for dumping wastes on the median of the road outside government approved dumping hours of 6pm to 12 midnight and at unapproved receptacle.
“We have warned for the umpteen time that residents and those doing business in Port Harcourt should obey sanitation rules; that they should dump their wastes only at RIWAMA approved receptacles; and they should obey the dumping hours of 6pm to 12 midnight order”, he restated.
Bro. Obuah commended the police who arrested one of the suspects and vowed that the other fleeing suspects including the said Kelly would be apprehended and prosecuted to serve as a deterrent to others.
Reaffirming his stance that those who flout sanitation rules are enemies of the State, Bro. Obuah stressed that residents and those doing business in Port Harcourt, the State capital and its environs have no excuse to dump refuse indiscriminately as receptacles have been strategically positioned close to business and residential areas.
Meanwhile, one of the RIWAMA environmental health officers who was amongst those attacked by those allegedly to the scene by the said Kelly and had the Agency’s vehicle vandalized has narrated his ordeal to journalists.
According to Mr. Cyril Amadi, they were on routine monitoring about 7 am, in company of police and other health officers of RIWAMA along Iwofe Road when they met a man identified as Kelly disposing of waste on the median of the road.
“When one of us accosted him to know why he should be throwing waste at the middle of the road at the wrong place and wrong time. He abandoned the waste and jumped into a waiting Keke tricycle, fell off and managed to get in again, and escaped.
“Shortly after, he mobilized some boys who came and started beating us up. They damaged our vehicle and punctured the tires. We managed to escape and were able to put a call through to our control room. While we struggled with the men, they mobilized more boys but luckily for us, we saw a naval patrol team who came to our rescue”, Amadi narrated.
He said the naval personnel were able to arrest one of the boys and handed him over to men of the ‘Operation Sting’ police force who brought him to the RIWAMA police station.
