…Teachers allege extortion of between N130,000 to N300,000 without Receipt
Alarm has been raised over recent incidents of masked armed men in collaboration with Environmental Health workers barging into schools within Ogidi, Nkpor, Enekwasumpu Obosi communities in Idemili North Local Government Area (INLGA) to abduct teachers under the guise of enforcing fumigation levy for the Anambra State Government.
According to the excerpts from ‘Kulele Zone phone-in Wazobia FM radio programme,’ our reporter gathered that the abducted teachers, principals or proprietors after being subjected to inhuman treatment and humiliation were further forced to pay between 100,000 to 350,000 naira to bail themselves.
A caller into the programme who said she witnessed the assault in one of the schools, claimed she saw when the team of masked armed men stormed St Joseph Catholic school, Enekwasumpu.
According to her, the St Joseph Catholic School security guard tried to resist them but they overpowered him hitting him with the butt of their rifle and tied him up. The masked men went further to arrest and force the teachers into the security van which left children scampering for safety.
Even those of us at the street took cover because of the fierce looking masked operatives. It was later we learnt that they came with health workers from Idemili North Health Authority to demand for fumigation Levy”.
Another caller said that the same group came to another school at Ogidi where her neighbour’s children school to abduct their teachers which made her neighbour to stop her children from going to school till further notice with the fear that if they could not see a teacher to arrest, they might start arresting school children for bail or ransome.
Another victim (name witheld) who spoke to the our reporter anonymously also alleged that the same daredevil group came to their school at Ogidi in company of INLGA Environmental Health workers to whisk away virtually all the teachers within the school premises without any official notice or demands living the pupils without their teachers and caregivers.
She said that the Health workers after serious humiliation and manhandling, further extorted over 100,000 naira from the school proprietor without receipt nor was the money paid into State Government’s official account.
“As soon as I opened the gate a team of armed men on mask with a Vigilante vehicle, suspected to be special force a.k.a Ebubeagu started harassing us saying they were sent by the INLGA Environmental health to come and arrest all the teachers present in my school.
“I asked them what offence did we commit to warrant such humiliation. They said that I locked the gate against them.
“They forcefully pushed every staff of my school into the security van leaving the school children scampering for safety.
“They did not allow us to make any calls. It was when there vehicle could not contain all my staff that they reluctantly allowed two of our staff to stay behind in the school.
“Getting to the INLGA Health Authority adjacent to the INLGA secretariat, Ogidi. All our teachers were forced to remove our shoes and sit on the bare floor like common criminals.
“After hours of detention with the safety of the nursery and primary school children hanging on the balance, our school proprietor came to bail us from one Madam Ebere, who said she was the Chief Taskforce of the INLGA Environmental Health after much negotiations from about #350,000, she accepted to collect #130,000 which was the last money in the proprietor ‘s account. We requested for receipt or account number for remittal but they insisted we withdrew cash from POS to bail ourselves,” she said.
Meanwhile, she said that while they were still in detention at the Environmental Health Authority, Ogidi another group of teachers from another school from Obosi were also arrested and brought in by the same team of masked AVS in collaboration with the health workers and were also subjected to the same inhuman treatment they passed through.
“Our school is Government approved. We are law abiding and we pay all revenues and ensure we contribute our quota or tax payment because we support the good works of our Solution Governor, Prof Charles Soludo.
“Even, if they made any other requests for payment and issued us demand notice, we would have looked into that through our association to know the ones to pay in order to checkmate exploitation or multiple taxation and gotten back to them amicably but there was nothing like demand notice for anything only to use brute force to dehumanize and exploit unsuspecting citizens,” she said.
When contacted, the Director, Environmental Health Department, INLGA, Mrs Beatrice Anene who declined to give detail of the incident, said she’s aware of the activities of the enforcement team.
According to Mrs Anene, “Yes I am aware of the incident involving my staff and some schools. Ask the school what they did. I will send you the phone number of the person you will call to get any response you want”.
When our reporter contacted the person, he refused making any comments but rather frowned at the fact that the Director of Environmental Health gave out his phone number without informing him and switched off his phone.
