…As Sanction Awaits Those Who Deface Public Properties
Miffed by the lingering nuisance created through indiscriminate display of bills, posters and banners at public places in Port Harcourt and its environs, the Rivers State Signage and Advertisement Agency (RISAA) has sought collaboration with Printers in the State to enhance its regulatory function.
Speaking during a town hall meeting in Port Harcourt on Thursday, the Acting Managing Director of RISAA, Chief (Hon) Anthony Okeah said the collaboration became necessary as printers play integral role in the outdoor advertisement and signage industry, noting that all bills, posters and banners are produced by them.
The RISAA boss said modalities are being worked out to have all printers in the state registered with the Agency for effective regulation and control.
Accordingly, he said the plan is to have only RISAA approved printers in the industry so that the law establishing the agency could properly take its course.
The Acting Managing Director disclosed that effective from September 1, 2019 all signage and outdoor advertisement notices without the approval of the Agency will be removed, adding that billboards that fall in this category will also be removed and only allowed when the owners have paid the default fees.
Okeah, a former member of the Rivers State House of Assembly who assumed office in January, 2019, debunked the idea that Printers cannot be held complicit under the circumstance as according to him, printers who fail to accept only RISAA approved jobs could be treated as aiding and abetting the littering of public places with posters and banners because ignorance of the law, he said, is not an excuse.
“It’s like cybercrime, the owner of cyber café are treated as accomplice when they are caught up with the law”, he pointed out.
He went on: “These provisions are explicit in the law establishing RISAA. Unfortunately, there are many laws that are assumed dead because they are not being enforced. There has to be a new orientation by the way we reason. Even to remove your signage to avoid paying for it is like tax evasion which is criminal”.
Restating that the Agency is not coercive in its operation, Chief Okeah said the import of the town hall meeting is to see how, as a regulatory body, RISAA could sanitize the system in terms of unnecessary and indiscriminate exposure of posters and banners at public places and properties.
He also warned churches, politicians and cooperate bodies against defacing of public places and properties warning that the September 1, 2019 date set for removal of all illegal posters and banners also applied to these groups, adding “Let us do it the proper way for where your rights ends is where that another begins”.
In his presentation, the Managing Director of Allingo Nigeria Limited, Sir (Chief) Allwell Egwuruguru said his colleagues in the printing industry also feel the pain and embarrassment associated with defacement of the city with banners and posters. He however added that printers do not direct their clients on where these posters and banners should be pasted.
Sir Egwuruguru who said he wholeheartedly welcomed the collaboration with RISAA, assured the Agency that they would work in concert with its directives.
“RISAA is not saying we should not do our jobs. The partnership you are asking is simply for us to ensure that our customers get RISAA approval before we print their jobs. When we partner with RISAA there will be control”, he said.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Operations Manager of the Agency, Mr. Chijioke Owhoji expressed appreciation to the participants for honouring the invitation while also commending Governor Nyesom Ezenwo Wike for appointing Chief Anthony Okeah as acting Managing Director, describing the appointment as putting a round peg on a round hole.
Owhoji said the town hall meeting was convened as part of measures to chart a new course, adding that the task of beautifying the State rests on everyone.
He told the printers that the Agency would welcome positive ideas that would advance its objectives while also appealing to them to take all deliberations from the meeting back to their colleagues who could not turn up for the event.
Most of those who spoke at the interactive session urged the Agency as the chief pilot to take its place by deploying every strategy towards sanitizing and standardizing the operation of outdoor advertising and signage in the State.
