Men of the Nigeria Police, Atakpa Division, Calabar, yesterday, Wednesday, March 27, 2019, stormed the Marina Resort, Calabar, and arrested several persons believed to have illegally taken up residence in a facility at the expansive resort.
We gathered that the police were called in after Cross River State Tourism Bureau officials discovered that the squatters had taken up residence in all the rooms in the facility at the Resort, built to house a three-star hotel.
Clement Umina, who heads the Bureau, while confirming the police raid at the Resort, informed www.calitown.com that the Bureau believes it is absolutely wrong for people to take up residence in a government facility built for a specified purpose. “If we must preserve what we have, this kind of insanity must be discouraged. Government spent a huge sum of money putting up this place, for these people to come from wherever and move into this rooms is really sad”, he said.
But Culture and Tourism Commissioner, Eric Anderson, when contacted by www.calitown.com, maintained that “…the people staying in that place are our staff and some others from the company we leased the Resort to.” However, the only lady among those arrested who initially claimed to be a staff of the Bureau, was unable to identify Umina, the Bureau’s head when she was confronted. On interrogation by the police, she confessed that she had lied and told our reporter that she paid for the room to a staff of the Bureau who was fingered and arrested shortly after.
“You people should do your investigations thoroughly; there are people in government who have encouraged these people to take up possession of these facility. Look at the traffic from the second gate that opens into Nsidung, don’t you understand that the people who control this place come from there? They are the syndicate that has taken over this facility and making money from it while even the Tourism Commissioner looks the other way. Everything is politics, even if it is detrimental to the development of the state”, one source who didn’t want his name in print told us.
By evening yesterday, the police were patrolling the Resort after word filtered out that an organised protest was to follow
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