By Jeremiah Archibong
Four persons are currently in the custody of the Nigeria Police Force, State Housing State division for defacing Cross River State capital city of Calabar in what the state’s Signage and Advertisement Agency (CRISSAA) says is a bid to rid the streets of defaulters.
The Director General of the Agency, Stanley Nsemo-Livingstone disclosed this to CrossRiverWatch in a chat where he described as “terrible” the indiscriminate defacing of the state with posters, boards and graffiti.
“We set up a task force, put people out there to call those numbers and ascertain the truth of those claims and we found out that most of these things are just fake claims” Nsemo said.
“It is appalling for human beings to deface the State like that, those things you paste and you get monetary gain, the State is losing because it cost the State a lot of money to get those papers out, even when you get them off the gum used remains forever. Cross River State is a tourism haven and we want to keep it that way.
“Right now we are handing them over to the State Housing Police Command, we have already written a letter to the Commissioner of Police who has been helpful and now we are going to prosecute them and make sure we stop all these indiscriminate pasting of banners and all those things, we’ve been trying to warn people the best we can to make sure they understand that these things are difficult to clean”.
On moves to sensitize Cross Riverians, he disclosed that; “We are introducing a project, the ‘respect it, protect it’ campaign and its going to run across the State.
“What that is saying is teaching people why they shouldn’t put posters on bus stand and past things around town it is wrong. We are also providing public notice boards we’ve made about twenty of them, they will be free for one to past things but for now do not past anything in Cross River State respect our rules.”
Also, Nsemo warned that; “This is a warning from CRISSA to those out there if you are putting posters on our walls anywhere in Cross River State, be afraid of picking the calls because any number you put on the poster we will find a way and we will get you”.
Two out of the four person apprehended who spoke to this reporter claimed ignorance of the law.
“I work with Neo-Life Company known as GNLD, it’s a company that empowers youths to create wealth and it started in 1958 in USA California. It’s spread across 77 countries. We have our modalities of getting people, it’s a business that involves getting people, we have different strategies of bringing people which includes flyers, posters and mouth to mouth advertisement. You use your individual creativity to get people but what you get paid is the number of people you have under your network. I think the accusation base on the State, I’m new here, I’m from Ondo State, there is no information. I have not heard that is against the law to paste poster in the State, it caught me unaware, to me I’m not guilty because I’m not from this State” said Stephen Olabode.
“For me the truth there is that people that belong to company are not the only people pasting posters, there are others out there advertising their company and products. For them to accuse us I don’t see anything wrong but we are looking for ways of achieving our dreams as in going far in life, so if they will arrest us for that for me it’s not right” Emem Effiong said.
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