No less than twenty-four tricycle operators popularly known as Keke drivers have been arrested by the Operation Clean and Healthy Anambra State, OCHA, Brigade.
The Agency’s Head of Operations, Mr. Chukwuemeka Oye, who disclosed this while speaking with newsmen in Awka, said the Keke operators were arrested over alleged non-compliance with government’s directive on tax payment, as well as engaging in activities that disrupt public peace.
Mr. Oye revealed that nine people were initially arrested around Eke Nibo on sixteenth November, while the remaining fifteen were arrested when they went to the correctional facility at Amawbia, blocked access roads while forcefully demanding release of their members in custody.
He further explained that the group, in company of about other two hundred Keke operators, tried to attack OCHA Brigade officials, but were repelled with the assistance of sister security agencies.
Mr. Oye noted that it was in the course of repelling the attack that they arrested additional fifteen of the Keke operators who, alongside nine others, will be arraigned in court on Monday, twenty-first November.
Speaking to newsmen, one of the suspects, Mr Uzochukwu Oguchi from Oba in Idemili South Local Government Area, claimed that they came to find out what their fellow drivers did for which they are detained, adding that they were referred to the headquarters of OCHA Brigade, where they were arrested and kept in custody since seventeenth November.
He appealed to government to come to their aid, even as he urged other Keke operators who are yet to comply with government’s directive on tax payment to do so.
It would be recalled that the state government has had series of meetings with Keke operators in the state, during which the tricyclists agreed to comply with the directive on tax payment, but ABS gathered that only forty-five percent of the Keke operators has complied with the directive as at the time of filing this report.
Comments are closed for this post.