Benjamin Jimoh
11 November 2009
Democratic Peoples' Alliance (DPA) has alleged that it was a betrayal of trust for Lagos State government to cede the burnt Tejuosho Market to a private developer at the expense of the original traders.
Lagos DPA spokesman, Mr. Felix Oboawina in a statement said it was scandalous to edge out the Tejuosho traders for a developer offering shops at N750,000 per square metre.
The party claimed that each trader would need about N3 million to secure a space in the proposed Tejuosho market.
"For traders who paid about N60,000 per year for their shops now to be suddenly slapped with a rent of N3 million for those same spaces insults the intelligence," DPA said.
The party described as part of the "grand design to sell off Lagos assets to private holdings," recalling that a similar treatment had dispensed to the State Polytechnic Campus at Ikosi-Ketu, School of Nursing Ikoyi and mortuaries in government-owned hospitals.
"This is not Shoprite in Lekki or Silverbird Galleria at Victoria Island . This is Tejuosho Market and Tejuosho market has always been the people's commonwealth, a legacy. Some of the stalls were handed down from generation to generation. It is a market for the masses and a veritable neighbourhood melting-pot, where the high and mighty rubs shoulders with the lowly. This new elitist allocation is contemptible, immoral, treacherous and reprehensible. It lacks any trappings of equity; it must be stopped," DPA said.
DPA said the new market deal would alienate the patronage of the housewife, the University of Lagos , Yaba College of Technology and neigbouring institutions who patronised the market for their daily needs from petty traders at the old market.
The party recalled that when traders staged a demonstration to Alausa Government House after the market got burnt in December 2007, Governor Fashola assured them they would get back their spaces.
"This creates a brand new confusion for the dislocated traders who trusted the government to undertake repairs and turn over their shops to them as promised." "This turn of events is pure treachery and absolute betrayal," DPA alleged.
According to the party, Fashola might be regarded as an efficient administrator, but he has consistently proved he is not a governor for the masses, because "many of his policies make life harder, harsher and unbearable for the masses and the poor."
It said displaced traders had found life difficult and impossible to find their footing after part of the market got burnt a few days to Christmas in 2007. Many who had stocked for Christmas lost a fortune in the mystery fire.
"Where will a woman selling pepper or hide skin delicacy (ponmo) find N750,000 per square metre? Or where will the man selling underwear and skirts and the struggling youth selling second hand clothing cough such a sum? Yet the government suffers no moral qualms sending KAI Brigade and Black Maria to arrest them at the Yaba rail-side for street-trading and hawking. This is a terrible contradiction," DPA alleged.
The party asked the Lagos State House of Assembly to urgently intervene in the matter and ensure that the displaced traders did not have their hopes dashed or end up losing their means of daily bread.
DPA recalled that displaced Tejuosho traders migrating to places like Mushin discovered they needed about N250,000, a rent they saw as exorbitant, which made them to endure the long wait for the rehabilitation of their burnt facility by the state government.
The party recalled that it once asked the government to investigate fire incidents at Tejuosho and other markets, as such fires fueled suspicions they were started by arsonists bent on forcing out traders that opposed takeovers by property speculators and developers.
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