What looks like a pitched battle is raging between traders on the streets around the Oja-Oba Market in Ilorin, Kwara State, and the state government. Predictably, there have been chaotic scenes at every stage of the intermittent clashes for control of spaces around the market.

For now nobody has an idea of who will emerge victorious at the end of the day.

But Before late last year, Oja-Oba Market, which had been existing for over 100 years, was always overcrowded with traders overflowing to the nearby streets, thus creating serious traffic problem for motorists and commuters in the area. But following public outcry, especially by motorists and other road users, the state government was compelled to move in and arrest the rot, which has been creeping in over the years without any control from any quarters.

Although the state government had initially employed a subtle method to address the challenge created by the unwholesome practice of trading on the streets adjourning the market, it later gradually wielded the hammer leading to the traders losing their coveted spaces without notice. The state government started pushing the traders inside the market by first expanding the post office through the Emir’s Road towards the Oja-Oba Market by grading and overlaying it with asphalt and new walkways for pedestrians.

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…over one million traders

The market situated within the ambience of the Emir’s palace from which other markets across the state sprung up, hosts more than one million traders, according to the Iyaloja of Oja-Oba Market, Alhaja Mariam Moshood Elefun. It has enough space for people to do their business inside. However, many traders prefer to display their wares on the road side where they find easy buyers, who claim that the prices of goods are cheaper on the streets than inside the market. But the state would not want to hear any of such story. It has carefully reconstructed the walkways and provided adequate barricade against street trading to confine all buyers and sellers inside the imposing market so as to create a sense of orderliness around the market.

This is the product of the ongoing urban renewal agenda of the administration of Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq in Kwara State.

The state government does not want any trading on the street around the market and has set up enforcement teams to monitor compliance by traders from dawn to dusk. To this effect, the state deploys a team of soldiers, policemen, and officials from the Kwara Transport Management Agency to keep watch over the market and to deal with anyone found trading on the street outside the market. In a bid to ensure compliance, wares of traders caught outside the market are promptly confiscated by officials of KWATMA to serve as a deterrent to would-be offenders.

But last Monday, the government added a more legalistic measure to the move to end street trading around Oja-Oba Market by arraigning offenders and sending them to prison for one month or a fine of N10,000. Notwithstanding the tough disposition of the government, Arewa Voice found out that some recalcitrant traders have refused to budge and are still displaying and selling their goods by the roadside. The leader of Oja-Oba Market Traders Association, Alhaja Mariam Moshood Elefun, told AV correspondent that government had directed those trading on the streets to occupy shops inside the market, but that many of the traders ignored the directive.

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“We understand that government has the final authority over everything. Now that the government is exercising its powers, it is clear to everyone that nobody can stop the government,” she said.

“Our people who are trading on the streets can still go to Oja Ago, Ita Amo and even Mandate Market to continue their trading, but they would tell you that you are asking them to leave because you already have a shop. But there is nothing we can do with the situation we have found ourselves,” she said.

Another trader Asumi Moshood Olateju in an interview with AV expressed satisfaction with the upgrade of infrastructure in Oja-Oba Market and the steps taken by the administration to sanitise the area for easy traffic. The General Manager, Kwara State Geographic Information Service, Alhaji AbdulKareem Babatunde Sulyman, made it clear that Oja-Oba Market was not meant to promote street trading and asked the traders to return to their shops within the market to do their legitimate business without fear or favour.

“Nobody is asking them to leave the market; we are only asking them to stay in the shops allocated to them to trade and stop trading on the streets,” he said.
(Vanguard)