APC chieftain, Ikonne decries Gov Otti’s midnight attack on traders

From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja

Abia State chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Prince Paul Ikonne, has strongly condemned Governor Alex Otti’s midnight attack on traders under the guise of market leadership as tyranny.

Prince Ikonne, in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Ujo Justice, in Abuja, accused him of turning Aba markets into centres of intimidation, extortion, and unchecked harassment, expressing deep concerns over the untold hardship traders in Ariaria and other major markets in Aba are currently facing in the hands of these government-backed enforcers.

He specifically accused governor’s appointees of weaponising taxation, turning a lawful civic responsibility into a brutal tool of oppression.

While recalling how Governor Otti, during campaigns, criticized the N18,000 levy imposed by the former administration as “too high” and promised drastic reduction, he lamented that the same governor inflated the levy to an outrageous N36,000 shockingly, upon assuming office, pushing thousands of struggling traders into deeper economic misery.

Prince Ikonne further noted that traders who can barely afford their daily survival are now confronted with an impossible choice of paying the inflated levy or losing their only source of livelihood.

“According to reports from the markets, government enforcers now move under the cover of night to seal shops of traders who have not paid the new high levy. By morning, affected traders are forced to either pay or face even harsher consequences. Those who attempt to unseal their shops by themselves are met with coercion, assault, and brutalization from a combined force of government-recruited thugs, police, and even naval personnel.
“In many cases, traders are re-arrested, their shops re-sealed, and they are forced to pay as much as N45,000. This is not governance; this is tyranny,” Prince Ikonne declared.

“How can a governor who receives over N30 billion in monthly federal allocations turn around to strangulate ordinary traders struggling to feed their families? What exactly does Governor Otti want from the meagre earnings of the common man?” Ikonne queried.

He further emphasized that while tax policies must be humane, fair, and considerate of the prevailing economic difficulties faced by citizens, when taxation becomes a political weapon, arbitrary, excessive, and enforced with violence, it becomes unbearable and unacceptable.

“I am worried that the present Abia state government has normalized the sealing of shops, properties, indiscriminate arrests, court summons, and humiliating treatment of Abians whose only crime is their inability to meet oppressive and inflated levies”.

“The rate of molestation and intimidation by agents of this government is alarming,” he stated, adding: “No democratic society should subject its citizens to such cruelty. Governor Otti must remember that leadership is about service, not punishment.”