Inyali Peter|6 August 2016
Barring a last minutes change, a group of young activists led by Barr. Joseph Odok have completed plans to drag the Cross River State Government to court over the legality of the state mobile court.
In a chat with Journalists in Calabar, Odok said that apart from the industrial court being illegally set up, the court has become a milking ground for extortion by operators and government.
Odok regretted that since the court was set up, nobody has appeared before it without being adjudged guilty and asked to pay outrageous sum of money as fine ranging from N100,000 to as much as N350,000.
While maintaining that the revenue generated from the court cannot be accounted as it is shared among few government officials, he challenged the government to make public the amount of money generated by the court since it inception or what the monies have been use for.
According to him, "The mobile court has become a milking ground for the government to extort and chase away all businesses in Cross River State.
"In a series of court judgements dolled out by the mobile court sitting at CUDA office, calabar recently, I watched with pains the government milking millions of naira from poor businessmen and women for flimsy grounds ranging from failure to fumigate business premises, failure to obtain health safety certificate.
"Poor people of Cross River were made to pay fines ranging from N100,000 to as much as N350,000".
He disclosed that recently one of his clients, Buddy's venture was charged N160,000 for failing to fumigate and obtain health and fumigation certificate, an act which is not a crime by law.
He said that, "In my address to the court, I vowed the option of civil disobedience and told my client never to pay any fine as I refused to recognise a Court founded in extortion than on equity" adding that the government must stop acting as an extortion machine in times of harsh economic conditions.
Also speaking, a member of the team, Mr. Kalita Aruku said that his family in his country home in Ogoja Local Government area of the state was recently fined N200,000 for failing to fumigate their surrounding.
Aruku said that, "Few weeks ago when I visited my family in Ogoja, this so-called mobile court charged us and passed a judgement declaring us guilty for failing to fumigate our surrounding without opportunity for fair hearing.
"We were fined N200,000 for the funny offence. It took intervention of some of my friends in government to wave the fine. But now I begin to ask myself, how about the common man in the street who doesn't have anybody in government? Is there any law backing the establishment of mobile court and it operation? Absolutely not! So this nonsense must stop.
He pointed out that "If the government was introducing a new law of mandating people even in the village to fumigate their surroundings, they must first carry out sensitization campaigns to tell people why and the consequences of not doing it not this one that you see jobless charge and bail lawyers junketing about extorting money from unsuspecting poor masses.
"Since the government has monumentally failed in maintaining the State's status as the cleanest in Nigeria, it has device this new means of making the public feel responsible for it failure and at the same time pay for the ineptitude of the government
"As we speak, we have completed our consultations and have succeeded in forming a formidable team of young intelligent lawyers to take on government on the legality of this. We call on Civil Society Organizations to key into this campaign of stopping extortion in Cross River state".
Inyali Peter
Writes from Calabar
