Abuja newspaper vendors honour Gbajabiamila, Ngige, others during annual week celebration

Newspapers Vendors Association, Abuja (NVAA), in collaboration with Abuja Newspapers Distributors Association (ANDA) is set to hold its annual Vendors Week in Abuja.

Tribune Online reports that the Vendors Week is used to celebrate those who sell newspapers in the streets and take the products to the end users.

The Vendor’s Chairman, Mr Idris Adamu, said Vendors Week was an annual ritual of the association to celebrate vendors who are in the streets toiling on a daily basis to sell newspapers to the reading public.

Idris speaking at the grand finale said: “Vendors are faced with a lot of challenges like, reduced sales, lack of buying power by the readers, government agency’s brutal approach, phase of new media.

“So, with the drop of hard copies, I am appealing to individuals, media houses, corporate organizations and government to help us.

“We want grants for our members to diversify; we want empowerment from government.”

In the same vain, the Distributors President, Comr. Benji Obute, said newspaper distributors held vendors in high esteems and they, the distributors, won’t be in the market without them. He said his association was collaborating with the vendors for this year’s Vendors’ Week because of its peculiarity.

Comrade Obute continued that “I wish to use this forum to commend the speaker of the House of Representatives, RT. Honourable Femi Gbajabiamila, who extended his hands of magnanimity to distributors and vendors very recently by providing avenue for some of us to participate in one of his numerous vocational/empowerment programmes where motorcycles, grinding machines, sewing machines, hair dryers and cash were given to our members.”

November 19 which is the grand finale was also set aside for the anniversary of a vendor who was killed by a trigger-happy security operative at the Federal Secretariat in 2020.

The high point of the week included award presentation and special recognition to some deserving Nigerians and organizations such as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila; The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige; Senator Philip Aduda, Daily Trust Company, Blueprint, Leadership, Hon. Mohammed Lado.

Two vendors Ikoi Phillips and Joshua Orogun presented books “The Vendors Strike” and “Dangers of Cultism, Drug Abuse and Internet Scam in the Campus” respectively.

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