By Brown Chimezie
The newly elected president of International Market Alaba Electronics (IMAE), Chief Camilus Amajuoyi has called on the traders to make sure they participate fully in the forthcoming general election in the country.
In this interview after the market’s New Year praying and worship session, Amajuoyi among other issues enumerated the efforts that they have made to ensure that the traders take part in the election.
The general election is starting in few weeks time, how are the traders preparing?
International Market Alaba Electronics is a business organization and not a political organization, so our preparation is usually in the way of ensuring that the traders perform their civic rights. I want to tell you that the traders are fully prepared because some months back, we closed the market so that every trader would go and register for his or her permanent Voters card and few weeks ago, we also closed the market for two days for the traders to go and collect their PVCs. In other words, the traders are ready to exercise their franchise. The fact is, for you to get the type of government that you want, you must participate in the election process.
What do you think is the voting strength of traders in Alaba International Market?
Our voting strength runs into millions. You know there is no white collar jobs anymore in the country. The market is now where most of the youths, school leavers, graduates are going to earn their living. About few years ago, the population of Alaba International Traders was one million, five hundred thousand but I am sure that it has gone far higher than that by now because every day by day, people are coming into the market to see how they can make their ends meet.
You just assumed office, what is the vision of your administration?
The vision of my administration is to make International Market Alaba Electronics an international trade centre. International Market Alaba Electronics is the biggest electronics market in the whole of Africa, so I want it to be worth its name. If you go around now, you would see that the market is already wearing a new look. So, I want to clean up the market and make it international standard. I want to make Alaba a big brand. For instance, we are going to do more in the area of infrastructural development/improvement and sanitation. For instance, the traders that are using attachments have been told to put rolling doors to avoid hoodlums breaking into their shops in the night. Again, the Post On Sales (POS) operators in the market, we want to make them part of us by giving them identity cards. We want to have their data with us. We want the data of their sureties or guarantors with us as a way of checking fraud and dishonest services because we don’t want anything that would be giving our market bad name.
What really informed the new year prayer and worship event
Well, we are a God fearing association and whatever we want to do, we always believe in putting God first. At the beginning of every New Year, the leadership of International Market Alaba Electronics and Christian Traders Association of Alaba usually hold a new year prayer and worship session to commit the year into the hands of God. The theme of this year’s praying and worship event is, “God is my helper” and a man of God in the person of Evangelist Peter Okonkwo was the guest speaker. The truth is that God has been good to us. A lot of us travelled to various places during the Christmas and since we came back, we have not heard any news of death. Again we came back and met our businesses intact, so it is something to be grateful to God for and when you show God appreciation for what he has done, he would do more and he has been doing more and more for us here in Alaba.