Hausa, Yoruba traders’ ejection not ethnic – Anambra

Posted by admin Anambra, State News Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

The Anambra State Government has debunked claims that its ejection order on traders at the Head Bridge section of the Onitsha-Enugu Expressway is targeted at Hausa and Yoruba traders.

At a press briefing after State Executive Council Meeting in Awka on Tuesday, the Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, Chief Maja Umeh, said the ejection order was meant to clear the way for the construction of service lanes and shoulders on that section of the road.

The Hausa and Yoruba traders at the goat markets, however, maintained that the ejection order had ethnic colouration.

Umeh said alternative sites had already been allocated to the traders, who refused to relocate.

Umeh said, “Following the commencement of beautification works on Km zero-three of the Enugu-Onitsha Expressway to complement the ongoing reconstruction work on the road as promised by Governor Peter Obi, it has become necessary to direct all the illegal occupants of the service lane and road shoulders to relocate immediately.

“These illegal occupants, especially those who have been allocated alternative locations like the goat sellers, 911 Lorry park users, and so on, are hereby directed to relocate to their sites immediately as their continuous stay there amounts to obstruction of the beautification exercise.

“The state government takes the beautification of the Bridge Head-Upper Iweka Roundabout very seriously since it is the main gateway into the state and will stop at nothing in bringing defaulters of this directive to order.”

The Hausa and Yoruba traders described the state government’s ejection order as “biased and ethnic motivated.”

They said they were legitimate tenants of the Federal Ministry of Housing and have valid receipts for payments for their allocations that would expire by 2014. They insisted that the plot to forcefully eject them by the state government was undemocratic.

The leaders of the traders, Chief Lateef Balogun, and Alhaji Tanimu Ibrahim, said the state government had concluded plans to lease the plot of land to a major transporter in Onitsha, adding that they were not given an alternative site to relocate to.

The trader leaders stated that the move to throw them out of the place of business they had occupied for over 40 years without a plan for compensation or relocation was a subtle way of sacking the Yoruba and Hausa communities in the state.

They recalled that the last time the state government tried to forcibly eject them with soldiers, 11 of the traders were killed.

They said, “What they are planning to do is to subtly sack us from the state but as Nigerians, we have the right to live and do business in any part of the country without fear of intimidation. We shall resist any plot to stampede us out of the market by agents of government over a flimsy excuse.

The Special Adviser to the Governor on Parks and Markets, Chief Sylvester Nwaobualor, had said the move to eject the traders was not motivated by ethnic considerations but a measure to clean up the Bridge Head which is the gateway to the state.

-Punchwp_posts