By Soni Daniel, Abuja

A new round of trouble is brewing in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory following the refusal of officials of the Abuja Municipal Area Council, AMAC, to accept fumigation certificates duly issued by the Abuja Environment Protection Board, which actually oversees environmental issues in the FCT.

It is the AEPB that inspects premises, evacuates refuse and human waste and carries out general environmental operations across the FCT.

For this reason, all premises operating in the FCT are required by law to fumigate their compounds each quarter, using approved fumigation vendors after paying them stipulated fees.

As a law-abiding organization, Vanguard Media Limited, which operates from its Zonal office in Area Garki, has been regularly using one of the official vendors to fumigate its premises and has been obtaining fumigation certificates for each quarter of the year.

However, on Wednesday, some elements, who claimed to be staff of AMAC, stormed into the premises and demanded the current fumigation certificate and were promptly provided with the certificate, which was issued by AEPB, after the last fumigation carried in March 2025. It is due to expire at the end of June 2025 before another fumigation is due in July.

But the three ‘officials’ comprising two young men and a girl, frowned at the certificate and rejected it on the ground that AEPB has no right to issue a fumigate to anyone in the FCT.

When the attention of Mr. Soni Daniel, Vanguard’s Northern Region Editor, was drawn to the presence of the ‘AMAC officials’, he tried to explain to them that the company had never defaulted in fumigating its premises and obtaining the required certificates.

Surprisingly, the three ‘officials’ become more furious and questioned who authorised AEPB to issue certificates for fumigation, warning that Vanguard and all other companies that patronise AEPB have violated AMAC’s bylaw and would be prosecuted.

The three men then ‘ordered’ Vanguard to ‘try and discuss the matter with them’ with immediate effect or risk being dragged before their ‘magistrate’.

The three persons insisted that AEPB lacks the power to inspect any premises or issue fumigation certificate since the AMAC Bylaw that saddles the council with the power to carry out those functions is superior to any law being paraded by the AEPB to exercise the functions.

When the officials refused to acknowledge any fumigation document presented by the company, they stormed out of the premises with a threat that Vanguard Newspaper will ‘soon hear from us’.

Staff of the company were shocked in the morning of Thursday, May 29 to wake up and find a court summon purportedly issued by ‘Magistrate Court of the FCT in the Abuja Magistrate Magisterial District’.

Although the alleged offence of ‘refusal/neglect to fumigate and obtain the regulated certificate of fumigation from the area council as stipulated in AMAC pest control byelaw was recorded on Wednesday, May 28, 2025, the purported summons with reference No. AMAC/PC/0159 came with a pre-dated stamp and date of May 14, 2024, two before the date of the visit of the ‘officers’ to Vanguard premises and was signed by one Farida Ibrahim, raising questions about the authenticity of the paper and those who issued it.

In the purported summon, Vanguard is summoned to appear by 11 am on June 6, 2025 in Magistrate Court 7 sitting in Wuse Zone 6 to answer to non-fumigation of its premises, even though the company has a current fumigation certificate duly issued by AEPB in March this year, which will expire at the end of June 2025.

It will be recalled that AMAC and other agencies of the FCT have been having a running battle over the exercise of several functions but the fumigation of premises and the issuance of fumigation certificates is the latest area of contest that will plunge many innocent persons into avoidable exploitation by touts parading themselves as AMAC officials.