THE Alaba International Market, one of the biggest markets in Lagos State, has been shut indefinitely over an alleged plot to burn it. The closure of the market arose from a bloody faceoff between traders and transport union members on Wednesday, Saturday Tribune gathered.
While the Lagos State police command told Saturday Tribune that only one person died in the fracas, a market leader was quoted by another news medium as saying that three persons were killed and 28 others injured.
However, in an exclusive chat with Saturday Tribune, the president of the Alaba International Market Traders Association, Geoffrey Mbolu, said: “I can only confirm the death of one person now. Many others were injured and are in the hospital. The shooting was massive. Many of our members were shot.”
When Saturday Tribune contacted the Oniba of Ibaland, Oba Sulaimon Adeshina Raji Ashade, who has the market and the union members under his jurisdiction, the traditional ruler refused to speak on the crisis. He asked our correspondent to call back. Subsequent calls put through to him went unanswered.
The image maker of the state police command, Benjamin Hundeyin, however, told Saturday Tribune that the police in the state were keeping an eye on the market
Confirming that only one body had been recovered so far, Hundeyin disclosed that five suspects were arrested in connection with the crisis.
“Only one body has been recovered and we have arrested five persons in connection with the incident. Investigation is still ongoing,” he said.
Since the latest bloody clash, reports of the imminent relocation of the market by the state government have been circulating, adding to the uncertainty over the fate of the multi-billion naira market.
The rumour was however shut down by the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr Gbenga Omotoso, in a chat with Saturday Tribune.
Omotoso said: “I have not heard anything about relocating the market. The exco (Executive Council) has not even discussed or said anything along that line. The rumour is a conjectural imagination of those spreading it.”
Predictable bloodbath
Findings showed that the Wednesday clash between the traders and the union members under the aegis of the Park Administration, formerly known as Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN), was borne out of years of acrimony between the two groups.
The traders said they have continued to live in fear, with their shops under lock over reports that suspected hoodlums were planning to invade the market again and set it ablaze. Their leaders said they decided to shut down operations pending when the state government will find a lasting solution to the problem confronting them.
Representative of Igbo Market in the Lagos Market Advisory Council and the secretary general of the Ndigbo Producing Markets Association, Mr Chinedu Ukatu ,told Saturday Tribune that traders at the market had, for long, faced hardship from the activities of the transport union around the market axis.
The market leader said: “It has been a while that they (Alaba traders) have been complaining about the activities of the road transport union, otherwise called ‘agbero’ and their infraction in the Alaba Market corridor. They have been having these people coming to collect tolls and causing untold hardship to motorists and the traders.
“They (the traders) have been complaining and we have tried to settle this issue amicably in the past. Coming from both sides of the road, you will notice that they collect tolls from containers and others. Coming inside the market and beside the market, a lot of tolls are being collected.
“My attention was called by the leadership of the Alaba International Market traders that the union people wanted to build a park directly in front of the market. Already, that road is jam-packed. It is already very difficult to navigate your way into the market. It is always very difficult to pass through the road.
“The traders are complaining. I don’t know who is collecting these tolls everywhere. The same people still want to come and mount a park in front of the market and make the place a nightmare for the people to pass through. When they called me, I told them to quickly have a meeting with the local government chairman to call these people to order, which they did.”
Speaking on how the dispute culminated in a bloody confrontation, Ukatu said: “We told them that this thing cannot work. It is either you shift these things to Chemist Bus Stop or other places. The local governments promised to look into it but they couldn’t do anything. Their hands are tied. The people still invaded the place and made attempt to mount a park and collect tolls.
“When they came, I told the leaders not to retaliate but to lock up their shops and go. The ‘agbero’ regrouped and started attacking people randomly. In this kind of situation, there was bound to be reprisal from our people but because of what I told them, they refrained. The ‘agbero’ insist on foisting whatever they wanted on the market, which is unacceptable.
“We are not telling them not to create their parks; we are only saying that it is not appropriate in the market environment, because they will constitute nuisance to the people and block the traders.
“Already, you have collected exorbitant toll from the people who are bringing the container. Okay, shift somewhere outside the environment and that is all. They were shooting. It is on record. It is not a new thing. The other time they had issues at Iyana Iba, they had guns and were everywhere. Many people were injured. Because of the tension, the traders shut down indefinitely to douse the tension. It is just for peace to reign.”
On how to resolve the crisis, he said: “The market leadership was in touch with the leader of the transport union before the Wednesday attack. We are going to harmonise the whole thing and look for the way forward. We will get every necessary authority involved because we are looking for a permanent solution. We can’t continue like this.”
Complaint over open defection
The president of the Alaba International Market Traders Association, Mbolu, while speaking with Saturday Tribune on Friday, disclosed that the leadership of the market was unsure of when the market would be reopened following alleged threats from the hoodlums who, according to him, have regrouped and are loitering around the market.
“The situation is calm now but we don’t have any hope of reopening now as the hoodlums have been threatening to come back and do a worse thing. The report we have now is that they are threatening to burn down the whole market.
“If not for the intervention of military men, they would have attacked the market again yesterday (Thursday). They regrouped with arms and were smoking Indian hemp at Chemist Bus Stop.”
Another trader who identified himself as Nwachukwu told Saturday Tribune that apart from the toll issues, “we have also been complaining about open defecation and other unhygienic activities of the ‘agbero’ around our market.
Nwachukwu said: They don’t observe sanitation and they urinate and defecate in the open. There are public toilets where we pay but they don’t use them; they prefer to urinate and defecate in the open.
“Many times we have had disagreement over this because the local government officials usually blame us for the dirty environment, even when they knew that we observe sanitation every Thursday. They (transport unionists) have fought with our task force members many times over open defecation.”
We demand probe –Market union
Meanwhile, the leadership of the market has urged the state government to investigate the attack and bring the perpetrators to book.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the union said: “It is worthy of note that this market contributes a sizable amount of revenue to the federal and state coffers through unquantifiable international and local trades. It will therefore be unwise to allow non-state actors like the operators of RTEAN/Park Administrators to short-change this national and state asset which houses several thousands of big, medium and small businesses.”
It further raised the alarm that traders are fleeing the market due to the attacks.
The statement said: “Suffice it to also mention that traders are now vacating the market in droves, as the complete blockage of the only Alaba road and the extreme extortion going on especially between Volkswagen Bus Stop and Alaba Market is becoming unbearable. Traders are made to pay on a fully-cleared container or a truck sums between N70,000 and N100,000 before they can be allowed to convey their goods to the market. It is the same for those supplying goods from their warehouses.
“For traders who cannot afford or who hesitate to pay, they are either beaten up or wounded. Sadly enough, only yesterday (Wednesday), we woke up to the information that a new loading point was to be instituted on the already-constricted Alaba road, which has already been taken over by petty traders who were given portions to display wares to the detriment of existing shop owners, a development that is completely defacing this market of international repute.
“To ensure that this issue was handled amicably, the Alaba amalgamated leaders quickly contacted the chairman of Ojo Local Government who promised to call them to order. We also contacted the interim caretaker committee chairman who also promised to call them to order but surprisingly on Wednesday, October 19, 2022, we were greeted with chaos in our market.
“Hoodlums that we cannot quantify trooped into the market with guns, machetes and other dangerous weapons, shooting and maiming buyers and traders who were doing their legitimate businesses to the extent that some were killed and several other wounded.
“To this end, we want to say enough is enough. We appeal to the Executive Governor of Lagos State, Mr Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu, to intervene in this matter before it degenerates into a serious security issue.”
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