RAYMOND OZOJI reports
The Coordinator of the Operation Clean and Healthy Anambra (Ochabrigade) in charge of Ogbaru Local Government Area and between Boromeo Roundabout to Upper Iweka in Onitsha Mr. Ejike Odife has said that the combined efforts of the Operation Clean and Healthy Anambra (Ochabrigade) and the Special Anti-Touting Squad Agency (SASA) have put to end the era of snatching of phones, handbags, touting and illegal revenue collections in the commercial city of Onitsha.
Odife who stated this during an exclusive interview with HEADLINE NEWS in Onitsha, explained that city dwellers moved about now freely with their phones, handbags and other accessories especially in the used-to-be-dreaded Upper Iweka axis of Onitsha without fear of attacks from hoodlums whether in the daytime or at nights.
Odife noted that the advent of Ochabrigade and Anti-Touting Squad have not only ended stealing of phones and handbags but have also enthroned a culture of discipline and public order in Onitsha. He said before the cleansing of Onitsha, insanity and irrational behaviours were the order of the day as open defecation, open urination as well as indiscriminate dumping of refuse in the gutters and on the roads contributed drastically to environmental degradation.
He said in the past the drainages between Head-Bridge and Upper Iweka in Onitsha used to be filled with faeces and all manner of wastes as people openly defecated and urinated in the gutters in broad daylight without recourse to the environmental health hazards posed by their actions.
According to him, Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo has tried tremendously because the combination of Ochabrigade and Anti-Touting Squad have enthroned safety at the Head-Bridge, Upper Iweka and its environs as they worked day and night to safeguard and protect citizens from the mayhem of miscreants.
He further disclosed that from January 2025 it will be total and complete zero tolerance to street trading and erection of shanties along the roads, stressing that the Managing Director of Ochabrigade Chief Celestine Anere has taken ample time to appeal to people who own shanties and trading along the roads to remove them before the enforcement begin next year as no defaulters will be spared.
He said that the governor's Dubai-Tiwan vision is a collective responsibility and that all hands must be on deck to actualize it, stressing that there would be massive operations against illegal structures and street trading because the offenders, according to him, have been given more than a year notice to comply with government directives.
The Onitsha Ochabrigade Coordinator however stated that most of the arrests being made now were those commiting the offense of throwing wastes into the gutters and those urinating openly in the public glare.
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