By James Ogunnaike
The Ogun State Government has sealed five Chinese companies and arrested some of their officials for assaulting and inflicting bodily harm on law enforcement officers and state officials while they were performing their lawful duties.
The companies, located in the Ogere axis of the Lagos–Ibadan Expressway, include DL Plastics Limited, Dyschenghan Plastics, SH Agricultural Limited, Beautiful Fibre Limited, and Jincaicai Nigeria Limited.
The Special Adviser to the Governor on Environment and Managing Director of the Ogun State Waste Management Authority, OGWAMA, Abayomi Hunye, said the companies mobilised their workers to attack the officials who had gone to enforce a seal-up order after repeated warnings.
According to him, the firms were repeatedly invited and officially notified of their environmental infractions, including improper waste disposal, open waste burning, and refusal to engage government-approved waste collectors.
“These infractions are not only degrading their premises but also threatening their host communities and the state at large,” Hunye said.
He explained that despite six months of letters, invitations, and visits by government officials, the companies refused to cooperate. Notices of intention to seal their premises were pasted on their gates for over three months, but the companies ignored them.
“When our officials eventually sealed the companies last Thursday by locking their entrance gates, the firms brazenly broke government chains and removed the seal order,” he stated.
To enforce the order, OGWAMA officials, accompanied by law enforcement officers, revisited the premises. However, they were violently attacked by workers who inflicted injuries on both law enforcement and state officials, forcing them to be rushed to the hospital. Hunye condemned the action as “barbaric.”
describing it as a show of contempt for state authority.
“What is more disturbing is that these companies, apart from constituting themselves as environmental nuisances, had the effrontery to assault and inflict bodily harm on law enforcement officers and government officials,” he said.
He warned that the state government would not fold its arms and allow a few recalcitrant foreign companies and their nationals to undermine the rule of law under the guise of investment.
“Any of them caught will be prosecuted under the laws of the land,” Hunye declared.
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