Follow Us on Google
Christopher Oji
Aguiyi Ironsi International Market Traders Association, Ladipo, Mushin Local Government Area, Lagos, at the weekend protested the planned take over of the market by the Mushin Local Government Area.
The placard-carrying traders, numbering about 7,000 called on Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwolu to caution the Mushin LGA chairman, Mr Emmanuel Gbgangboye to stop his proposed move to install and force a caretaker Committee on the market .
The protesters pleaded with Sanwolu to urgently intervene as they would not want anarchy in the market. Their placards had inscriptions such as “ leave our market in peace and not in pieces; we are okay with the leadership of our market; we don’t need Area boys to run the affairs of our market; stop the plan to distabilise our market; stop plans to creat problems; we don’t need strengers to run our market; we will resist any hoodlums or group that wants to cause problem in our market; LGA Chairman should obey Court order.”
Chairman of the market unit, Mr Emmanuel Mbamara, said: “ I was elected to office two years ago and my tenure would have expired in March. But while we were making arrangements to conduct election, the world was hit with the COVID-19 pandemic, there was lockdown and the market was closed down.
“When the restriction was lifted, we wanted to do the election, but the LGA Chairman warned that we should respect the law on restrictions. So we started looking for possible ways to do the election, but we are yet to find solution because of social distancing. We still called on the LGA to give us permission and security, but the chairman said it was not possible to conduct election.
“Three people who for their selfish interests started instigating the chairman to constitute a Caretaker Committee to take over the market. They took us to court, but the court gave us three months to conduct election. The three months have not expired and with social distancing, the Board of Trustees and the traders, said we should continue till it is convenient to do election.
BOT chairman, Mr Innocent Ejike, while calling on his members to remain peaceful, said: The BOT has met and discover that we cannot conduct election under COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing order. We were thinking of electronic voting. But it is not feasible, so we resolved that the executive that is still doing well should continue till we are able to find solution. The market is peaceful so let the LGA chairman leave us alone and not bring confusion to the peaceful market. No trader is complaining and everything is moving on well.
“We don’t understand why the LGA Chairman wants to bring in non members of our market to come and start running our market.”
