By Olayinka Olukoya

Copyright tribuneonlineng

Five companies have been sealed off by the Ogun State Government for assaulting and inflicting bodily harm on officials of the state government and law enforcement officers while carrying out official duty.

The companies which operate on Ogere axis on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway are DL Plastics Limited, Dyschenghan Plastics, SH Agricultural Limited, Beautiful Fibre Limited and Jincaicai Nigeria Limited.

The Special Adviser to the Governor on Environment, Hon Abayomi Hunye, said the five companies mobilized, assaulted and inflicted bodily harm on law enforcement officers and state government officials from OGWAMA who were in their premises to seal them after several invitations and official letters written to them.

They were said to have been invited to bring to their notice the serious environmental infractions their different companies have been committing through improper waste disposal, waste burning and refusal to patronize government-recognized waste collectors which are causing serious environmental infraction not only within their premises but in their immediate environment and the state at large.

Hunye, who doubles as the Managing Director of the Ogun State Waste Management Authority, “We have been on this case for the past six months. We have sent letters to them and invited them to let them know what they have done,but they refused to honour our invitation. Aside
from these letters, our officials have visited them several times, but they refused to allow them in.

“After all these efforts proved abortive, we pasted notices of intention to seal them on the their premises, especially on their main and entrance gates in the past three months hoping that will trigger them to honuor our invitation. They still refused to come forward, so last week Thursday our officials sealed them by locking their entrance gates. But to our surprise, they did not only remove the government seal-order, but they broke the government chains used to lock them.

“To enforce the earlier seal-up order, state officials in company of law enforcement officers went to their industries hours ago. However, they were met with mob attack by their workers who assaulted and inflicted bodily harm on law enforcement officers and state government officials, who were all rushed to hospital thereby not only preventing them from carrying out their lawful duties but with the intent of harming.

He berated the action of the companies which he described barbaric act.

He added that the Ogun State government will not fold its hands and watch few relcatriant Chinese companies and their nationals carry out such dastardly act under the pretext of investing in the state as any of them caught will be prosecuted under the law of the land.

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