Editorial
In the Nigerian Horn editorial of October 27,2025,the attention of the government was drawn to the notorious activities of the Imo State Environmental Transformation Commission (ENTRACO),and the public outcry against the manner of its operations. We appealed to the governor of Imo State, His Excellency, Senator Hope Uzodimma, to urgently call the Commission’s field officers to order before they bring disrepute and public angst against his administration.
Ironically, rather than redress their steps in deference to the growing negative public opinion against their brutish and disdainful manner of discharging their official assignments, the Commission’s field staff – behaving more like touts – went haywire. They graduated from bad to worse.
From harassing innocent motorists and petty traders, including those operating and doing businesses outside Owerri capital city,they proceeded to Toronto in Uratta community in Owerri North Local Government Area, just last week, where they brazenly confiscated poor people’s wares – food stuffs from their shops, matchetted some people,weilded axes like cultists and declared war on the community. The story was nauseating and promptly elicited wider condemnation from the masses.
As if that was not enough, Monday, the ENTRACO officials struck again. This time, their lawlessness and recklessness led to the loss of human lives around Akachi Road by Aba Road. The pictures of the deceased were so gory that it could have orchestrated something else if the governor had not timely intervened by suspending indefinitely,the operations of ENTRACO anywhere in the State.
The governor hammer did not fall on ENTRACO only but also on any other form of Task Force in the State. He warned that “any person or group of persons operating in the name of ENTRACO or Task Force in any form or manner shall be liable for criminal conduct and visited with the full weight of the law.”
The governor further directed the Commissioner of Police, Aboki Danjuma, “to arrest and prosecute with precision anyone seen operating under the name or guise of ENTRACO, as well as members of any other Task Force found harassing and intimidating Imo citizens.” He assured the public that ENTRACO activities will be investigated and anyone found culpable “will face the full wrath of the law regardless of who is involved.”
Since the governor’s swift reaction, there has been joy across the State, particularly in Owerri and its environs. The people are full of commendations for the governor. The people regard the governor’s intervention as victory over tyranny and man’s inhumanity to man.
Nigerian Horn,on its part, thanks Governor Hope Uzodimma for his firmness and decisiveness in flushing out ENTRACO, at least for now. Beyond this, the governor should be very meticulous in selecting whoever heads ENTRACO, going forward. The field staff should also be made to undergo training on how best to engage with the public in the course of discharging their duties.
Government work should be carried out with a human face. What has befallen ENTRACO should be a lesson to others who erroneously believe that government work is an opportunity to harass hapless citizens.
