Joseph Odok|4 August 2016
Ayade must stop illegal extortions of poor citizens of cross river state or arrest me. Joseph Odok appears before Cross River State Mobile Court as an agent of civil disobedience.
The mobile court has become a milking ground for the government that is ready to extort and chase away all businesses in Cross River State. In a series of court judgement dolled out by the mobile court sitting at CUDA office, Calabar, Joseph Odok watch with pain the government milking millions of Naira from poor businessmen and women on flimsy grounds ranging from failure to fumigate business premises, failure to obtain health safety certificate. Poor people of Cross River State were made to pay fines ranging from 100,000 to as much as 350,000 Naira.
Today Bar Joseph Odok's client Buddyz Venture, Atekong was charged N160,000 for failure to fumigate and obtain health and fumigation certificate. Joseph Odok in his address to the court vowed the option of civil disobedience and told his client never to pay any fine as he refuses to recognise a Court founded in extortion than on equity.
The charge on innocent Cross River State citizens is due to breach of environmental and safety laws according to the mobile court judge in his ruling. It is a fact that the Cross River State government has been the major agent of pollution in recent times. The governor has failed woefully in keeping the environment clean. He who goes for equity must go with clean hands.
It is a fact that the government of cross river state has failed to pay his agent and most of his agents including the commissioner for education has become an agent of extortion and oppression to feed their greed.
Worrisome is the fact that most businesses are closing down because of high tax charges and extortion. In the same vain, the economic realities in the state are so harsh that extortion will further close down business and be a security risk as more and more people are taking to crime as an option for survival. Disappointedly, most funds extorted from poor cross river state citizenry are not judiciously used. There are cases of the commissioner of education extorting from JSS III and SSS II for a mock exams that is yet to be conducted.
In the same vein, the DOPT, VIO, and mobile courts extort so much today with no tangible results. Calabar remains dirty despite extortion from the ministry of environment. Our gutters are blocked occasioning flood, yet a failed government, will still be in the habit of extorting from it's citizens. Even when taxi drivers and lorry drivers pay heavily in terms of roads, our roads remains dilapidated and death traps.
From the above reality of extortion, I Joseph Odok, offer myself for arrest or I will from next week Tuesday, 9th August begin massive act of civil disobedience. It is my resolve to disrupt all operation of mobile court anywhere in Calabar. I will take responsibility and will not evade any arrest or intimidation in the cause of carrying out my resolve for civil disobedience.
I enjoin interested and concerned citizens of Cross River State to join me in my struggle for justice and the liberation of our people. The time is 8am on Tuesday the 9th of August, the venue is CUDA office, Edim Otop, Close to Doris O. An injustice to one is an injustice to all.
The battle is drawn and the government must stop acting an extortion machine in times of harsh economic conditions.
Joseph Odok
Social Change Agent
