Rivers State Government received a barrage of knocks after it sealed EUI Event Centre, a popular events centre in G.R.A. Phase III Port Harcourt where it said guests allegedly blocked the adjoining road to traffic.
The Commissioner for Information and Communications, Mr. Chris Finebone, told journalists that the EUI was sealed after its management refused to heed several warnings from the Rivers State government, instructing them not to allow their activities block the road without government approval.
“The management of EUI Events Center had refused to refrain from blocking an entire stretch of part of Sani Abacha Link Road, GRA Phase 3 without government approval.
Finebone said very often, owners of event centres in the State, fail to plan for the vehicles of their guests; how the vehicles will be parked and how other road users would use the same road.
Rather, he said the centre allowed their guests to block the road and did not care about the nuisance such blocking of the road caused other road users.
“Government cannot fold its hands and watch people exercise impunity to the highest level by appropriating property government built with tax payers money just to their own personal use and comfort. Government must protect all,” the commissioner said.
The Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Mr. Austen Ben-Chioma, who was at the press briefing said that EUI’s blocking of the road on Wednesday went against the promise the management had made to government to manage the traffic around its premises so as not to create unnecessary traffic.
“But to the greatest surprise of the Rivers State government, today’s event that is holding there, there was no road for road users to pass and road users were complaining bitterly.
“I got the information and I went there myself and I saw that the road was totally blocked. I told the owner of the place that this cannot be tolerated. And she said that she has done her best and she cannot kill herself.”
The management of EUI however declined comments on the matter when National Point called. The manager of the centre sent word to say the management would not want react to the closure of the place.
The closure of the government has however attracted criticism from members who felt the government went too far in its action. Some others alleged political undertones because a lot of the guests at the event centre on the day it was sealed, were members of the political opposition. They included Tonye Cole, the Governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Austin Opara, former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives and Senator Lee Maeba, two members of the governor’s party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Maeba and Opara had fallen out with the governor because they are supporters of Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the PDP, a political foe of the governor.
A few weeks ago, the government had come under similar criticism after it secured a court order to shut down Port Harcourt Mall, which hosts Spar Supermarket for allegedly failing to show how it planned to do crowd control during its Black Friday sales.
