As the deranged take over Uyo BY PRISCILLA CHRISTOPHER

The last is yet to be heard of the pollutants accommodated amongst us as the mentally deranged have joined the throng of elements, causing discomfort and inconvenience to the environment. Until recently, the efforts of the state Ministry of Environment to combat the plague of incessant begging around plaza and its environs was a nip in the bud to ensure the total evacuation of defacing elements of environmental pollution. Alas, those credible efforts have been debased by the replacement of abnormal beings at the same spots and around the places where the driven beggars played out their trade. 

This trend of environmental degradation which keeps changing from one form to the other therefore calls for an action that would see to the absolute erasure of unwanted and unneeded elements from the environment. 

For quite some time, Uyo urban environment has been defaced with unkempt looking shabbily and half-dressed men and women sitting, lying or walking at road sides, muttering whatever and carrying baggages containing meaningless articles which they dispose at their discretion. Virtually every street in Uyo is now composed of these strange-looking humans who surprisingly are not of the Akwa Ibom tribe. One then wonders how they got in here. Could they have been imported overnight?  

Indeed the menace of mad persons in Uyo metropolis is becoming more of an eyesore than a mere sight. Observations have shown that most of them occupying certain locations do pose a threat to passers-by along the way thus, causing discomfort to those plying the route while others take delight in harassing people at gatherings and hindering other rights to social peace.  

The government is hereby alerted of this threat to citizen’s rights to freedom of movement as these beings who have been reported to have killed, maimed and destroyed properties and lives in the past should not be found amidst the peaceful and defenceless citizens of Akwa Ibom. 

In a dispensation as now where citizens’ rights to life are being threatened by insurgencies, it is necessary that precautionary steps are taken to ensure the safety of people. Some of these beings may be pretending, who knows, as some of them cannot really be termed ‘mad’ judging from their appearance, suspicious moves and intakes. Perhaps, they could be thieves in disguise or worst, Boko Haram spies getting familiar with the environment. 

The agencies concerned should seek means in which these ‘strangers’ can be deported to wherever they came from and perhaps, where they rightly belong so as to give back Uyo her beauty. As earlier stated, most of them are not of this tribe and even when they are, the insane have no dealings with the sane, just as the dead and the living. The state capital should be cleared of these parodies of human beings who beset everywhere with their eyes roving for victims to intimidate, molest and frighten.