Traders of the popular Ladipo auto parts market which was shut down on Monday are currently lamenting over the pains the closure has caused them. The Traders have stated that not less than 100 billion naira is lost every day, as the market remains closed.
While speaking with journalists yesterday, Secretary of the Aguiyi Ironsi Traders Union, Mr. Christian Igbaunam painfully asserted that the market loses over N100billions per day to the closure, lamenting that several efforts to negotiate with the task force in order to reopen the market has failed severally.
He said: “We have over 15,00 registered members. Individual members make not less than N10 million daily. On the average, members will be losing over N100billions on a daily basis to the closure of the market.”
Denying the allegations that the security guards arrested from the market were armed robbers, she said, “those allegations made against our security guards are false. They were not armed with guns and were not against the state officials. They were only misunderstood. These are security guards put in place by the association to arrest criminal activities in the market. I am pleading for their release.”
A trader who pleaded that his name shouldn’t be in the print said “whenever I offload my containers, I make not less than 15million naira. Just imagine what I will be losing now that the market has been shut.”
Another trader, Jude Tobechukwu, pleaded for the re-opening of the market, saying, “we are losing billions of Naira to the closure of this market. Today’s (yesterday) is the second day that we have been shut out. I have lost over N10 millions since the closure. That is a huge sum of money even those in government do not want to lose.”
A trader identified as Okolie Amadi also claimed that his wife was in the hospital for a kidney transplant, lamenting that he needed some money to pay for her medical bills “I was hoping to use this week to look for money for the transplant. My wife is lying helpless in the hospital awaiting a kidney transplant due to lack of money. I came to the market to see if I can raise some money for her operations only to see that armed mobile police officers have barricaded the entrance to the market. I am pleading to the state government to have piety on us.”
It would be recalled that the popular Ladipo market was on Monday, shut down by the Lagos state environmental Task force for environmental related issues, which the state government claimed was not healthy for the operation of the Market.
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