The Sole Administrator of
the Rivers State Environmental Sanitation Authority (RSESA), Mr Ade Adeogun, has said that the demolition of some shops along Agip road was to forestall the activities of criminals in the area.
. Adeogun, who made the clarification while speaking to newsmen during last Saturday’s sanitation exercise in Port Harcourt said the operators of the shops  erected their structures on government land even as they claimed otherwise.
“What we are doing is to eliminate the criminality constituted by the shop owners “What we are doing is that we are starting from the beginning, we take it one at a time”, he said.
He explained that the operators of the illegal structures were given enough time to remove them as the structures constituted environmental nuisance.
The sanitation boss revealed that criminals were known to patronize the shops even as some residents of the area who spoke to The Tide expressed delight for the demolitions.
The Tide’s investigation revealed that the inscriptions “remove” marked on the structures by the sanitation authority were painted on by the operators of the businesses in defiance.
While the demolition was going on, the shop owners were seen frantically removing their belongings even as efforts to speak with some of them were rebuffed.
However one of the major operators of the structures who tried to beg for more time from the sanitation authority boss was disappointed as he was told that ample time had already been given to them.