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About two years ago or so, the authorities in faraway Uganda were forced to cry out against the rising cases of vandalization. 

 

By Frank Ikoro

 

About two years ago or so, the authorities in faraway Uganda were forced to cry out against the rising cases of vandalization. Group of people were stealing their iron, aluminum and allied metal profiles in that country. As a consequence, the Government had to place a ban on the buying and selling of such materials as craps in that country.

Here in Nigeria, especially in her Eastern divide, the case of vandalization is the same if not worse. This is as it has assumed alarming proportions. More able-bodied men are involved in the picking, selling and buying of all manner of iron and aluminum products. And they have turned it into a lucrative business.

But in going about, it, these chaps break into homes and private residences without the permission or authorization of the house owners. They pick and pack anything or things having iron or aluminum, silver or bronze linings. They enter the compounds at very odd hours, pick these items and go on to sell them in the already booming scraps markets. The markets are scattered here and there in every part of the country especially Igbo land, including Isuikwuato.

I have personally suffered and continues to suffer great loses as a result of the activities of these men. As they are ever targeting those homes in quite secluded areas of any given Community.

In the last five years or more, they have regularly broken into my house as well as other houses within my neighborhood. They remove wholesome domestic appliances. Disfigure them by dismantling them to look like the scraps that they are not. And they go on to sell the items to their cronies.

Just recently they broke into my house again as always. They removed valuable items which included generating sets, shovels, head pans and wheelbarrows. Other items are pieces of 12/16 mm iron rods pieces and full lengths parked in my premises.

Although my house can be said to be very secure with the high-level perimeter fence surrounding it, yet this iron picking thieves called Ndi Akpakara are ever breaking into it. And they do that with unimaginable ease leaving no traces of who done it for the house owner to wonder aloud.

As in our townships as in our villages and other rural communities and dwellings, these guys have become nuisances. They are on rampage, inflicting physical and mental injuries on fellow country men and women. They have become to say the least, undesirable elements. Their vocation must be made to stop or be properly scrutinized and sanitized. That is if they must continue to function. This is because they are becoming another form of terrorists operating in disguise.

It has seriously been alleged and believed to be so, that there is a connivance between these two. The northern security guards and the Akpakara scavengers. The Akpakara people of the northern extraction, therefore, collude with the northern security guards’ to perfect the break ins. They remove these items and waybill them back to their homes up north, undetected.

Currently one of them is said to have been caught and handed over to the police. He is being interrogated in line with the offense.

There are too many unfamiliar faces whose mission and motives you never can say, freely moving about in our villages. As a result, thereof, there is the urgent need to safeguard our communities in Isuikwuato.

I am of the opinion, that all efforts must be geared towards closing down all such Akpakara depots in Isuikwuato.

Frank Ikoro

writes from Umuobiala, Isuikwuato, Abia State

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