One person has been confirmed dead while seven others sustained injuries following a fracas during last Saturday’s sanitation exercise in Nasarawa State.
The incident occurred at about 9:30 am in Kilema, Lafia Local Government Area of the state.
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A resident of the area, who didn’t want his name in print, told Aso Chronicle that trouble started after an allegedly mentally unstable man was beaten up by staff of Nasarawa Youth Empowerment Scheme (NAYES) who were on night patrol on Friday.
Another resident of the area also told our correspondent that the mad man was seating under a shade when the NAYES staff came from nowhere and started beating him leaving him with a fractured hand.
According to the sources, the “NAYES staff and some security operatives including the police, Peace Corps, Federal Road Safety Corps, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps and members of the Nigeria Legion attached to the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources monitoring the environmental exercise, were blocked by some hoodlums in the morning.”
It was gathered the confrontation was a result of what the NAYES staff did to the mad man on Friday night.
Our correspondent learnt that the angry youths, who trooped onto the streets in their numbers, chanted “we no go gree, the mad man is not a thief why did you beat him up and broke his hands? What did he do to you? We will not allow you to go free.”
“The attack on a NAYES bus was not to obstruct the sanitation exercise. It was a spillover of an incident that took place last night when a NAYES staff beat up a mad man, claiming that the mad man was a thief,” a resident informed our correspondent.
It was further revealed that the NAYES staff reportedly claimed responsibility for fracturing the mad man’s hands, which did not go down well with the angry youths, hence the attack on the bus conveying security operatives attached to the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources.
Mr. Aliyu Agwai, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, who confirmed the incident to our correspondent in Lafia, said seven persons sustained various degrees of injuries during the fracas and were taken to hospital.
He said the incident was not linked to the sanitation exercise, adding that “on Friday last week in the night, some NAYES staff at Kilema manhandled a mad man whom they suspected to be a thief.”
“When the sanitation exercise was going on, a NAYES staff on patrol went to check the mad man and the residents of the area saw him and started going after him. One of the protesting youths dived into the bus and grabbed the steering wheel causing the driver to lose control.”
Residents said the youth died in the process of struggling for the steering wheel with the bus driver.
When contacted on the incident, the General Manager of NAYES, Mr Abdullahi Labaran, said he had not been briefed on the matter at the time of filling in this report.
Meanwhile, a mobile court handling environment-related cases on Saturday sentenced 18 persons for violating environmental sanitation laws in Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital.
The judge, Abdullahi Lande, convicted and sentenced them to six months imprisonment each with an option of fine ranging between N5,000 and N50,000.
Earlier, the prosecutor, Abubakar Mohammed, who is also the Chief Environment Officer, had told the court that the suspects were transacting businesses while the sanitation exercise was in progress.
Mohammed said the offences violated Section 9 (2), of the State Environmental Sanitation Law.
He urged the court to sanction the culprits accordingly to serve as a deterrent to others.
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