Umuahia — The Environmental Health Officers Registration Council of Nigeria (EHORCN) said that it may be forced to drag Abia State government to court over what it referred to as "criminal" extortion of money from Aba residents over environmental sanitation by quacks posing as health officers.

The Registrar of the Council, Mr. Augustine Ebisike, on working visit to Abia State, alleged that the state government was giving the quacks legal backing by granting them license to operate.

The council observed that these officials were abusing the use of abatement notices which they have converted to a tool for extorting money from the ignorant public.

"Quacks have taken over enforcement of environmental sanitation in Abia, particularly in Aba, and they are backed by government. They use abatement notices with their phone numbers written on them to extort money from residents. This is giving a bad name to my profession and I do not like it. This is corruption at the highest level," Ebisike lamented.

Addressing journalists in Umuahia, Ebisike warned that anybody not registered by the council to practice as an environmental health officer, whether employed by government or not, remains a quack.