Eke Ukwu Owerri traders have joined forces with the people of Owerri Community in the ongoing battle against the Imo State government’s plan to relocate the market to a new site in Egbeada, Mbaitoli Council Area of the state.
A member of the market leadership Chief Simeon Opara disclosed this yesterday at the Relief market where the aggrieved traders had gone to present a petition they wrote to the House of Representatives urging it to intervene in the matter to Hon. Ezenwa Onyewuchi, member representing Owerri Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives.
According to Chief Opara the government plan to relocate the market has not only caused the traders huge losses in business as they no longer focus on their business and income but has also inflicted grievous physchological torture on them and their families in the process of thinking about the bleak future ahead of them.
He said the relocation plan if allowed to sail through would unleash a deluge of serious negative socio-economic consequences whose multiplier effect would affect almost everyone resident in the state capital and environ.
He said the traders have joined forces with Owerri people whose indigenous lawyers led by Ken Njemanze SAN and Nnawuchi SAN by hiring two Senior Advocates of Nigeria SAN one of whom is Prof. Francis Dike to defend them in the Court against government.
He called on Hon. Onyewuchi to as a matter of urgency table their matter before the House of Reps as that is where they are now looking up to for help since the legislature in the state has failed woefully to perform their duties of checking the excesses of the executive even he as commended the lawmaker for his effort in helping them.
Responding the lawmaker assured the traders of his readiness to always stand by them at all times and especially now their livelihood were threatened.
Hon Onyewuchi stated that indigenous markets were always a common sight in African cities and even in Europe stressing that what government that has the interest of their subject at heart do when need arises is to find ways to remodel or renovate such markets to suit the modern taste instead of outright relocation as such markets are regarded as cultural heritages that should be preserved.
