Rivers State is grappling with an unusual and increasingly dangerous adversary. They do not carry guns, nor do they announce their presence with any great fanfare, but the damage they inflict on public infrastructure and private property is proving every bit as costly as more conventional forms of crime. Many now refer to them as silent terrorists — men and women who strip bridges, drains, and homes of anything that can be exchanged for cash at a scrapyard. What was once dismissed as a nuisance has hardened into a genuine threat to public safety, and it deserves the full attention of those charged with governing the state.

These itinerant scrap collectors, widely known on the streets as “iron condemn,” have moved well beyond their original trade of gathering discarded metal and household refuse. Driven largely by hardship, rogue operators now roam freely through Port Harcourt and Obio/Akpor, and their activities have shifted from harmless salvage to outright vandalism of public assets. Manhole covers vanish overnight. Wire mesh is stripped from bridges. In some instances, these characters have also been accused of serving as lookouts for more serious criminal enterprises, lending their apparent innocence to darker purposes.

Social commentators across the state have not minced their words, describing the phenomenon as a fresh strain of economic terrorism visited upon ordinary citizens. Their argument is a compelling one: infrastructure paid for with public funds is being quietly dismantled, piece by piece, while those responsible melt back into the crowd before anyone can react. Consequently, there have been repeated calls for governments at every tier to reinforce security around the installations most likely to attract these scavengers, before more of the state’s assets are lost to the scrap dealer’s scale.

What makes this menace particularly  disingenuous is how ordinary its perpetrators appear. Pushing carts or dragging sacks, they blend into the everyday bustle of the city, arousing little suspicion until the damage is discovered. Bridges have been left structurally weakened, road furniture damaged beyond easy repair, manhole covers stripped from major roads, rail tracks compromised, drainage systems rendered useless, and electrical installations left exposed to the elements and to further theft. Each of these represents not merely an inconvenience but a genuine hazard to motorists, pedestrians, and residents alike.

Nor do these individuals confine themselves to public property. Homes across the state have been invaded and stripped of gas cylinders, generators, ceiling fans, handrails, and window and door metal frames. The pattern of their movements is rarely virtuous; there is method, and often menace, behind it. Some have taken to prising manhole covers from the roads specifically to sell them on to iron smelters elsewhere in the country, where the metal is melted down and recycled into other products. In doing so, they have become, in the truest sense, a danger to the society that once tolerated their presence.

Their impact on the physical environment is scarcely less troubling. Scavengers descend upon refuse dumps and leave them in disarray, tearing open bags of waste that had been properly sorted and disposed of, scattering the contents across roads and drainage channels. What was meant to be a tidy, managed process of waste collection instead becomes another source of filth and blockage, undermining the very sanitation efforts the state government has invested in.

The scale of the damage this behaviour can cause was laid bare recently in a disturbing video that circulated widely on social media, showing scavengers dismantling a bridge linking Festac Town and Alakija in Lagos. The footage showed them breaking into the structure’s concrete pillars to extract the iron rods and steel reinforcements buried within — components essential to the bridge’s structural integrity. Although the incident occurred outside Rivers State, it stands as a  dyed-in-the-wool warning of what unchecked scavenging can ultimately do to critical infrastructure, and Rivers cannot afford to wait for a similar calamity before acting.

Understandably, some communities have already taken matters into their own hands, barring scavengers from entering their neighbourhoods altogether. Reports suggest that many of these operators can turn confrontational when challenged, and there have been troubling accounts of violence associated with their activities. Beyond the immediate safety concerns, the informal dumps some scavengers have established have visibly defaced parts of Port Harcourt, compounding the city’s existing environmental difficulties.

Given all this, the moment has surely arrived for the Rivers State Government to step in decisively, either to regulate the trade or to curtail it outright where it cannot be safely managed. The economic argument for tolerating informal scavenging is easily outweighed by the criminal tendencies it has come to harbour and the environmental hazards it continues to generate.

Nigeria’s poverty statistics help explain, without excusing, why so many are drawn into this line of work. The National Bureau of Statistics has found that roughly 40 per cent of the population, some 83 million people, live below the national poverty line, while 63 per cent of Nigerians, around 133 million people, were classified as multidimensionally poor in the 2022 National Multidimensional Poverty Index survey. Desperation of that magnitude will always find an outlet, and scavenging has become one of the more visible ones in Port Harcourt.

It has also been observed that the ranks of scavengers in the state capital appear to swell month on month, as newcomers arrive and quickly join their peers already established in the trade. This steady influx has made the problem harder to contain through piecemeal, reactive policing, and points instead to the need for a coordinated registration and monitoring system that can distinguish legitimate waste pickers from those with more sinister intent.

Complicating matters further, some of these individuals go about their business in a manner deliberately designed to resemble that of genuine refuse disposal personnel, complete with carts and sacks that mimic official waste collection equipment. The dangers this disguise can conceal were illustrated by a deeply unsettling episode, where a scavenger was intercepted with a child hidden inside a refuse cart before fleeing the scene, abandoning his equipment in the process. That such a case could occur at all should alarm every parent and guardian in Rivers State, and it underlines why scrutiny of anyone operating under the guise of waste collection can no longer be treated as optional.

If scavenging is to continue in any form, it must be brought under proper control. Operators should be required to confine their activities to designated dumpsites within the city rather than being left free to roam residential streets, construction sites, and public infrastructure at will. Rivers State can licence, monitor, and confine this trade to where it belongs; what has been missing is the determination to do so. The longer it is withheld, the more bridges, drains, and homes will be quietly stripped bare, and the greater the risk that the next viral video of infrastructural vandalism will be filmed not in Lagos, but in Port Harcourt itself.