Agents of Imo State Environmental Transformation Commission (ENTRACO) attacked and utterly destroyed the Newspaper stand of a Vendor and completely trashed her newspapers in water along wethedral road in Owerri.
The unfortunate incident which took place April 10th, had passersby questioning what could warrant such mayhem melted out on an innocent newspaper vendor.
According to eye witness account, “the Newspaper vendor was in her shop around 11am and an ENTRACO agent putting on ENTRACO jacket was suddenly attacked by some angry commercial drivers who took turns to beat him up, demanding to know why he is on illegal duty when the governor of Imo State has stopped every taskforce operation in the state. The beating was however interrupted by an Army officer who immediately intervened and stopped the fight and demanded to know what caused the fight. The drivers reported to the officer that the ENTRACO officer was on illegal duty because Task force operations have been banned in Imo. Then the Army officer amicably settled the rift and asked everyone to dispatch.
“Around 2pm, four vehicles filled with ENTRACO workers arrived and started asking of the whereabouts of the commercial bus drivers that beat up one of their men. Some of them were carrying weapons and woods, shouting and disturbing the peace and concentration of passersby and road users. On sighting the vendor, some of them immediately approached her stand and totally destroyed her table, trashed her newspapers and poured water on them.
“One of the ENTRACO agents frowned at the destruction of the newspapers, and sought to know why they had to involve the innocent vendor in their fight. The vendor immediately attempted to video the scene but was stopped by a police officer that came with them and advised her to pick up the newspapers and arrange them. He assured her that the leader of the group will come to address the issue.
“When the leader popularly known as “The General” arrived by 4 pm, the vendor went to officially inform him of the incident but was shocked when he angrily used hammer to destroy the remaining table she uses to display the newspapers and recklessly splashed water on all the remaining newspapers and told her to go to hell or report him and his boys to anyone, then arrogantly shouted that he is in government and nothing will happen”.
