It has been an encouraging two years for the current Government of Anambra Governor, Prof Chukwuma Soludo. Despite the enormous challenge posed by insecurity in the early days and up to now, his government has been able to stamp its foot on the ground and got things moving in the right direction. It is well to say that the people of the state are getting fair value for their votes.
However, the activities of some government agents are threatening to blight the success story of the Soludo Administration. Any resident of the state will indeed bear testimony of the nefarious actions of these agents masquerading as revenue agents, OCHA Brigade or anti-touting agents. These people are becoming larger than life and seem to do as they please with the confidence of those acting on the orders of a higher authority.
That higher authority in this case being the state government, it becomes puzzling why the said government has been rather coy about the entire thing which is why incidences of their harassment have kept happening. It is becoming a case of no week passing without some bizarre story being told or heard about the intimidation of people by members of these agencies.
The latest ones were the brutalization of one Mgbilimgba by members of SASA, as the government’s anti-touting agency is known; and the case of a man allegedly stabbed to death by government official touts because he dared them. There had been other incidences before these two.
Till date, government is yet to really set an example with those behind the brutalization of citizens, except to promise to do something. We are yet to hear what happened to those who beat up a driver of GUO Motors for ”reckless driving”. The driver was not only beaten but was taken away, leaving the passenger stranded.
Indeed, the only time government did something worthwhile was when the Management of the state’s internal revenue service paraded two of its field men who dragged a driver out of his vehicle in Onitsha. Those officials were sacked and since then no new harassments have come from that sector. This shows the power of sanctions.
We are therefore calling on the Soludo Administration to redouble efforts towards taming its field agents before they cause further harm. It should be known that each bad action they take rubbishes the government’s image, as well as that of the state as a whole. Those appointed by the government to restore sanity should not be insane.
As Gov Soludo will say, this is not who we are. Indeed, we must not allow agberos or touts to define who we are. Government must act quickly to reclaim the public space from these hoodlums in uniform.
