Sallah : NASWDEN President Felicitates With Muslims

The National Association of Scrap and Waste Dealers Employers of Nigeria, NASWDEN, Engr. Ogbu Uchechukwu has felicitated with Muslims most especially members of the Association on the occasion of this year’s Eid-el-Kabir celebration.

In his Sallah message in Abuja, Engr. Uchechukwu advised Muslims to imbibe the lessons of the festivities which include obedience, sacrifice, peaceful coexistence and love for one another irrespective of tribe, religion and political differences to ensure the betterment of the country.

He also stressed the need for them to pray for Nigeria to overcome its security and economic challenges.

Engr. Uchechukwu used the opportunity to once again solicit the Federal Government’s financial support to its members towards boosting their business activities and ensure effective empowerment.

He said the appeal became necessary to enable his members to continue to contribute to national economic development and compliment the efforts of Government in job and wealth creation in the country.

According to him, the Association has ensure effective and professional coordination of activities of its members nationwide hence the need for Federal Government to put in place an intervention fund for them to grow their business.

Engr. Ogbu Luke Uchechukwu stated that measures had also been put in place by the Association towards achieving the objectives of NASWDEN in the areas of overseeing the activities of all scrap dealers in Nigeria, help the Federal Government to ensure that its members work with security agencies in Nigeria, reduce the rate of vandalism of national infrastructures and to checkmate illegality among scrap dealers nationwide among others.

The National President explained that a Task Force to checkmate cases of buying and selling of stolen items among its members in the FCT and the 36 States of the Federation had equally been set up by NASWDEN.

Engr. Uchechukwu said the Association was working with security agencies towards upholding the integrity of its members in the course of carrying out their legitimate businesses.

“In 2024 here in Abuja, we launched a Task Force called”Operation Say No To Vandals” and we did it in collaboration and support of the Inspector General of Police then alongside the Commandant of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, as well as other security agencies and the purpose of this is to enable the Task Force to go and supervise what our members are loading to make sure that non of them load a stolen Government or individuals property in the name of scrap to supply to any user company.”

“We also designed what is called “Clearance” and the work of this clearance is to after supervision at the loading point, if you’re found loaded genuinely without anything incriminating, the State’s Chairman of NASWDEN with the State’s Monitoring Team Chairman will issue what we call Clearance to assertain that what the person has loaded is genuine and if otherwise, the Monitoring Team will handover the victim to security agents for necessary action and prosecution “.

Engr Uchechukwu who said NASWDEN has over the years been contributing to economic development of Nigeria solicited State and Federal Government support for its members nationwide towards realizing the objectives of the Association.

“Since I was elected as the President of NASWDEN, I’ve given employment to over 300 Nigerians through direct and indirect jobs in all the 36 States of the Federation and the FCT and since I assumed office, I make sure that I registered all Scrap Dealers nationwide to have their personal data to enable us trace each of them whenever they commit any crime and this registration of members is still ongoing although there are still other States we’ve not covered in some Northern parts of the country that we just inaugurated”.

Engr Uchechukwu stressed the need for members of the Association to shun acts detrimental to the objectives of NASWDEN.

He also emphasized the need for members of the Association to always contribute their quota to national economic development.

Mathew Ayoola, Edited By Grace Namiji