The Ogun State Government has shut down five Chinese companies and arrested some of their officials for inflicting bodily harm on law enforcement officers and state government officials while performing their official assignments.

The companies, which all operate in the Ogere axis of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, are DL Plastics Limited, Dyschenghan Plastics, SH Agricultural Limited, Beautiful Fibre Limited, and Jincaicai Nigeria Limited.

In ordering their seal-up, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Environment and Managing Director of the Ogun State Waste Management Authority (OGWAMA), Abayomi Hunye, who gave the directive, said the companies mobilised, assaulted, and inflicted bodily harm on law enforcement officers and state government officials from OGWAMA who were on their premises to seal them after several invitations and official letters were written to bring to their notice the serious environmental infractions their different companies have been committing through improper waste disposal, waste burning, and refusal to patronise government-recognised waste collectors, which are causing serious environmental infractions not only within their premises but in their immediate environment and the state at large.

“We have been on this case for the past six months. We have sent letters to them and invited them to let them know what they have done, but they refused to honour our invitation. Aside from these letters, our officials have visited them several times, but they refused to allow them in.

“After all these efforts proved abortive, we pasted notices of intention to seal them on their premises, especially on their main entrance gates, in the past three months, hoping that that would trigger them to honour our invitation. They still refused to come forward, so last Thursday our officials sealed them by locking their entrance gates. But to our surprise, they did not only remove the government seal order, but they broke government chains used to lock them.”

“To enforce the earlier seal-up order, state officials, in the company of law enforcement officers, went to their industries hours ago. However, they were met with mob attack by their workers, who assaulted and inflicted bodily harm on law enforcement officers and state government officials, who were all rushed to hospital, thereby not only preventing them from carrying out their lawful duties but with the intent to harm them.”

Hunye, who decried the barbaric action of the five companies, said what is even more annoying is that these Chinese companies have not only constituted themselves as an environmental nuisance with their attitude, conduct, and behaviour toward constituted environmental authorities but have the effrontery not only to assault but also to inflict bodily harm on law enforcement officers and state government officials without considering the grave implications.

He added that the Ogun State Government will not fold its hands and watch a few recalcitrant Chinese companies and their nationals carry out such dastardly acts under the pretext of investing in the state, as any of them caught will be prosecuted under the law of the land.