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.
