The Special Anambra Anti-Touting Squad (SASA) has recounted how traders at the pharmaceutical market in Onitsha launched acid attacks on its operatives during the weekend.
SASA was set up by the Anambra State Government to enforce a law which banned routing, and collection of revenue by touts, in the state.
It was reported that one person was killed in the market during the weekend after operatives of the agency tried to apprehend a tout at the Niger Bridge Head.
The tout escaped into the market.
The operatives were said to have pursued the tout but were resisted by the traders, who launched an acid attack on them.
While security operatives attached to the agency were trying to bring the situation under control, a youth, said to be a graduate of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, was shot dead in the market.
Director of SASA, Mr Solomon Chukwuebuka, who spoke through the Public Relations Officer, PRO, of Anambra Vigilant Group, AVG, Mr Nweke, said it was unfortunate that the traders, instead of assisting to apprehend the tout, decided to attack the SASA operatives.
Narrating what happened, Nweke said: “On Friday 16th of February, 2024, our men were on our usual official assignment to rid the Niger Bridge Head area of touts who stationed themselves there, extorting money from transport operators and buyers from the surrounding markets.
“As our men went after the culprits, some of the market traders launched massive acid attacks on them. Four, out seven of our men, sustained life threatening injuries from the acid attack and doctors are currently battling to save their lives.
“As it became obvious that our men could not arrest the touts in the market as a result of the life threatening attack on them, they retreated. It was at that point that operatives of the Nigerian Navy, stationed at Uga Junction area, intervened and arrested the ugly situation.
“But instead, commentators on the trending video on social media made the victims bathed with acid to become the villain, thereby exonerating the market authority from facing the consequences of their ill-action.
“It is unfortunate that Ogbo Ogwu Market leaders accused our men of having killed a student of Nnamdi Azikiwe University. They even alleged that the touts that ran into their market were merely people urinating and our men were after them, forgetting that SASA officials are not Operation Clean and Healthy Anambra, OCHA Brigade, sanitary inspectors or environmental sanitation officers who have the responsibility to deal with such misdemeanor.
“The traders’ attack on our men brings into question the role of our informal private sector like markets, motor parks, amongst others in the war against crime in order to make Anambra a liveable and prosperous state, as Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo had vowed to make it.
“It is really unfortunate that a suspected violator of the law fleeing from arrest will be given protection by a legitimate market whose leadership is duly recognized by the government of Anambra State.
“Meanwhile, market leaders were among the major stakeholders who lent their voices in passionately requesting Governor Soludo to rid Anambra State of touts and extortionists.”
