Various petty traders narrate their experiences.
Officials of the
Abuja Environmental and Protection Board,
under the guise of keeping the city clean, routinely extort money from
street traders; forcing the helpless victims to either part with their
meagre income or lose their wares, a PREMIUM TIMES investigation
reveals.
These officials, who go around the Nigerian capital in
marked buses, harass the traders in the presence of gun wielding
security officials usually police men.
The officials do not only
commit their atrocities within the city centre, they also regularly
extort money from street traders in the satellite towns. Sometimes, the
environment officials, whose agency is saddled with protecting and
maintaining the environment, carry out their nefarious activities close
to government buildings.
In trying to execute part of their
mandate of stopping street trading in the Nigerian capital, the
officials also make illegal money for themselves.
The Abuja secretariat incidence
On
June 12, hawkers in front of the Federal Secretariat in Abuja were
harassed by officials of the AEPB who arrived in a marked white bus
with the number 50 printed on it.
Abuja Environmental Protection Board Bus 50 after the operation
A
PREMIUM TIMES reporter, who witnessed how the hawkers, mostly women
selling perishables ranging from carrots, groundnuts, fruits, and corn
ran away clutching their goods as the task force officials arrived.
Speaking
to PREMIUM TIMES after the task force had left, many of the hawkers
said similar incidents occurred everyday with the officials giving them
two condition: either give them bribe or have their goods confiscated.
“They
used to collect bribe here, every blessed day different faces come, we
will give them money and the next day another set will come and say if
we don’t give them they’ll pursue us. After sometime you’ll see another
set of people with different faces. If you stay here small their motor
will still come with different set of people,” Happiness a groundnut
seller, said
Another banana hawker, who identified herself as Grace, also narrated her ordeals in the hands of the officials.
She said the hawkers at the secretariat contribute money which is given
to the task force officials for them to allow the hawkers sell their
product.
“I sell Banana. This people (AEPB officials) come here
every day. It’s been happening for long and we are told they are the
Abuja task force,” Grace said in Pidgin English.
The middle aged banana seller said the traders usually contribute money for the officials.
“After
we’ve given them the money, another set of officials would come in a
similar bus to seize our goods into their vehicle; or demand their own
bribe,” she added.
Another trader, Esther, told PREMIUM TIMES that
most times the traders contribute between N100 and N1, 000 to pay as
bribe to the officials.
“All of us here contribute N100 each for
each set that comes here. One time, one particular set came and said we
will give N1, 000 each before we can stay here for our business, we gave
them; and before you know it another set came with a different bus and
different faces. Sometimes they come three times in a day and we
‘settle’ them on each occasion,” she said.
When a PREMIUM TIMES
reporter approached the AEPB officials at the secretariat to ask
questions on their activities as well as the bribery allegations, they
became aggressive and almost started a fight.
The officials
queried the reporter’s reason for asking questions and taking
photographs of their activities. They eventually drove off in their mini
bus.
Witnessing bribery
A witness also narrated a similar incident by AEPB officials at Bisso Street in Wuse Zone 6.
“I
was parked in a corner in Bisso Street, Wuse Zone 6 when a Toyota Hilux
AEPB van with six men: some dressed in a black AEPB polo T-shirt while
others wore an AEPB crested vest drove towards some hawkers, harassed a
corn seller and carried her goods,” the witness, who identified himself
as Sani, said.
“Then there was this other man selling provision in
a wheel barrow all on the same street that walked towards the
passenger’s side of the AEPB marked Hilux van. I watched him closely as
he gave some money to the passenger in the van and they drove off,
sparing him from the same ordeal the corn seller faced,” he narrated.
Several
similar incidences involving extortion and harassment by the AEPB
officials were narrated by witnesses and hawkers in various Abuja
satellite towns including Lugbe and Gwarinpa.
While the illegal activities of its officials continue, the AEPB management claims its officials are not involved in illegality.
AEPB reacts
When contacted, the spokesperson for the AEPB, Sam Musa, said all the allegations are false.
“How
can you say they harass hawkers to give them money, they don’t! What’s
the name of the person, and what type of task force, they are many task
forces in town, there is task force from AEPB and there is task force
from Abuja Municipal Council and our own task force always goes with a
team leader with numbered uniforms and police officers too,” Mr. Musa
said
When told that the White Hilux bus of the secretariat
incident had number 50 inscribed on it, while the Toyota Hilux van of
the Wuse incident had the AEPB boldly written on it, Mr. Musa still
insisted that officials involved were not part of the AEPB.
“That
particular task force is not AEPB task force, please don’t quote AEPB,
it’s not AEPB, our task force are tagged with their numbers and they
move around with their supervisors,” he said.
Mr. Musa also said
although the AEPB had the responsibility of keeping the Abuja
environment clean, there were other task force that operate in the
Nigerian capital. He claimed the other officials hide under the umbrella
of AEPB to extort money from hawkers instead of making sure that they
stop doing business as usual in prohibited areas.
“Yes, we are in
charge of Abuja; it is not only AEPB that has task force, we have task
force from municipal (Abuja Municipal Area Council,” he said
Efforts
to get the reaction of the Abuja police on why police officers assist
the environment officials to perpetrate the extortion and harassment
were unsuccessful.
The Abuja police spokesperson, Atine Daniel,
did not pick her calls and asked that PREMIUM TIMES send its questions
by SMS. Over a week after the message was sent, the police spokesperson
is yet to respond to our enquiry.
