Treat ‘iron condemn’ operators as terrorists or watch the bridges fall, By Chukwuemerie Uduchukwu

The time has come for governments at every level in Nigeria to confront a destructive force that has long operated in plain sight under the guise of informal scrap collection. Those who call themselves iron condemn operators, roaming the streets of Abuja, Lagos, and other major cities, are no longer mere scavengers scraping a living from discarded metal. Their activities have escalated into systematic attacks on the very foundations of public infrastructure, and the damage they inflict demands that they be treated with the seriousness reserved for terrorists.

These individuals and the networks that support them target the structural integrity of bridges, roads, and drainage systems with calculated precision. They extract iron rods embedded in concrete bridge supports, pry open and remove manhole covers that protect underground utilities, and strip reinforcement from barriers designed to safeguard motorists and pedestrians. Each act weakens critical assets that cost billions of naira to construct and that citizens rely upon daily for safe passage and basic services. The cumulative effect is not petty theft. It is sabotage that endangers lives, multiplies repair costs, and undermines the credibility of public investment.

Nowhere has this menace been more starkly illustrated than in Lagos in recent weeks. Bridges and concrete barriers across the state have been compromised by the removal of essential metal components. The Ministry of Environment and Water Resources has documented the resulting structural failures, showing how the extraction of reinforcing iron has left sections of vital infrastructure vulnerable to collapse under ordinary traffic loads or seasonal flooding. These are not isolated incidents of opportunistic scavenging. They form a pattern of deliberate degradation that leaves the state scrambling to contain risks that should never have been allowed to materialise.

The consequences extend far beyond the immediate physical damage. When a bridge loses its steel reinforcement, the entire structure becomes a latent hazard. When manhole covers disappear from busy roads, open voids appear that claim vehicles, injure pedestrians, and create choke points for traffic. When concrete barriers are stripped of their metal cores, the protective function they were built to perform evaporates. Every such act transfers the cost of reconstruction onto taxpayers while eroding public confidence in the ability of government to protect the assets it has funded. The economic toll compounds daily through delayed journeys, increased accident rates, and the diversion of scarce resources to emergency repairs that could have been avoided.

Treating these operators as ordinary criminals or informal sector participants has failed. Arrests for theft or illegal scrap dealing have proven insufficient to deter the practice. The rewards remain high, the risks low, and the networks that buy the stolen metal continue to operate with relative impunity. Only a fundamental shift in classification and response will change the calculus. When individuals knowingly compromise bridges and roads that serve millions, their actions meet the threshold of attacks on critical national infrastructure. In any serious jurisdiction, such conduct would attract the full weight of anti-terrorism and economic sabotage statutes. Nigeria can no longer afford the luxury of milder labels.

Federal, state, and local authorities must therefore act in concert. Intelligence gathering should identify the syndicates that organise these operations, from the street-level collectors to the middlemen and the scrap yards that process the stolen metal. Security agencies need clear mandates to treat the harvesting of structural iron from public works as a priority threat rather than a routine policing matter. Legislation should be reviewed and, where necessary, strengthened so that the penalties for damaging bridges, roads, and related assets reflect the true scale of the harm. Public awareness campaigns can help communities recognize and report suspicious activity around infrastructure sites before the damage is complete.

Immediate protective measures are equally essential. Critical bridges and barriers must receive enhanced physical security, including regular inspections, better lighting, and, where feasible, the use of less easily removable materials or locking systems that raise the difficulty and visibility of theft. Manhole covers can be redesigned or secured in ways that discourage casual removal. Local government areas in Lagos and the Federal Capital Territory should coordinate with state environmental and works ministries to map high-risk locations and deploy rapid response teams capable of intervening before structural integrity is lost.

The argument for firm action is not abstract. Every week of delay invites further extraction, further weakening of bridges, further exposure of road users to open manholes, and further erosion of the concrete barriers that separate traffic from danger. The Lagos experience demonstrates that the problem has already reached a level that demands emergency response. Other cities cannot wait for their own infrastructure to suffer the same fate before adopting comparable urgency.

Those who continue to parade as iron condemn collectors while systematically dismantling public assets have crossed a line. Their trade no longer resembles informal recycling. It constitutes organized interference with the physical systems that hold cities together. Governments that fail to confront this reality risk presiding over the slow-motion destruction of the very infrastructure they claim to protect. The choice is no longer between leniency and severity. It is between decisive action now and the far higher human and financial costs that will follow if the sabotage is allowed to continue. The time for treating these operators as anything less than a threat to national infrastructure security has expired.

Chukwuemerie Uduchukwu writes from Abuja, Nigeria. He can be contacted via [email protected]