ACTDA Operatives Charged Of Intimidating Traders With Machetes, Axes, Other Weapons

Hon. Chukwunonso Igwe, deputy minority leader of the Anambra State House of Assembly and represents Ogbaru 1 State Constituency, has expressed strong disapproval of the Awka Capital Territory Development Authority (ACTDA) and their actions in the state capital of Awka.

In an interview with a journalist at his office in the Assembly complex, Igwe criticised the ACTDA operatives for their barbaric, atavistic, and reckless methods of demolishing buildings in the city. He argued that these actions were both inhumane and completely illegal.

Furthermore, Igwe warned that the destruction of the means of subsistence for the impoverished masses, who barely have access to N100,000, could lead to social unrest and instability in the community.

He emphasised the need for a more humane approach to the situation, calling on the government to take action and put an end to these destructive practices.

Igwe insisted that despite ACTDA’s claims to sanitise the state capital by demolishing illegal buildings and shanties and discouraging street vendors from defacing Awka, the organization ought to put a human face on its operations instead of intimidating and terrorising vendors with matchsticks, axes, and other weapons.

The deeds of employing machetes, axes, and combustibles to ruin and burn the goods and properties of common small traders in the name of upholding order in the state capital were characterised by the legislator as acts of arrant depravity.

He said, “The action of ACTDA officials is more or less touting. If someone is flouting the laws of the state; you don’t correct an error with another error. There is no way you impound people’s property or goods along the roads; you destroy them, burn them, and use machetes, and axes to intimidate traders. It is not fair!

“If traders are violating the laws, there are proper ways to handle them. You can confiscate their goods and they will pay a fine. You can also ask them to leave and if they fail to leave, you seal off the place without damaging their goods.

“We are in a very difficult economic situation and destroying those goods meant aggravating the situation further. The law does not permit ACTDA to destroy goods and properties of traders. What the law says is if anyone is found trading on the roadside, there is a certain amount the individual will pay, when you confiscate their goods.”

The Deputy Minority Leader who advised ACTDA to adhere strictly to the provisions of the law in carrying out enforcement, also suggested the creation of alternative markets where such traders can be relocated rather than render them completely useless by destroying their means of livelihoods.

Reacting to the actions of ACTDA officials as being barbaric and irresponsible, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Awka Capital Territory Development Authority (ACTDA) Hon. Osita David Onuko, said it was rather unfortunate for anyone to describe the actions of ACTDA operatives as barbaric and irresponsible.

Onuko, who also spoke exclusively with this journalist maintained that ACTDA doesn’t destroy people’s property instead they only handled those who flouted the law after a series of persistent notices and interfaces from the government.

He said they were not barbaric and that ACTDA is an agency of the law. Onuko further disclosed that street trading was not recognised in the law and they were not on a vendetta mission but the fact remains that Anambra is not a state of lawlessness.