Newspaper vendors under the aegis of Akwa Ibom State Newspapers Association on Thursday took to the streets over a purported harassment and intimidation of their members by the government officials in the state.
The vendors, who are selling around the Ibom Plaza, a central business hub in Uyo, complained that they have been molested, beaten and unduly harassed on regular basis by the Ibom Plaza Management officials.
Chairman of the association, Otobong Udofia, who spoke to journalists on behalf of the vendors, accused the management of harassing his members on daily basis, adding that efforts to stop them have fallen on deaf ears.
His words, “The management of Ibom Plaza has been coming to harass our members on daily basis, so we don’t understand what is the stand of newspaper vendors in the state, if they don’t want us to be in the state; they should let us know.
“When they come they will demand for money from the vendors, saying that we are the cause of people coming there to steal, so we asked questions: How does picking pocket in the area concerns vendors? They even claimed that the state government said we should leave the plaza.
“We insisted and said that by right vendors cannot pay a fee of N2,000 monthly demanded by the management because our commission is only N40.00 per newspaper sold and before you can sell newspapers that can give you up-to the commission of N200 as to have a plate of food for the day, you must have walked around Uyo metropolis.
“A lot of people have been reading papers online, papers don’t sell again and before we labour to sell one thousand a day, we will go round the whole of Uyo. We have been supporting the government we wonder why government is against us.
“We don’t sell up to N2,000 so it will be difficult for us to raise such amount and pay, we eat from the amount and we pay transport from there.
“When they come, they would harass our members and they will run away and many papers would get lost along the line.”
Also one of the victims, Sunday Etukudoh said “last Tuesday will be the third time the chairman of the Ibom Management will come to harass me. He said I should tell everybody that they should not sell newspapers in that place. He ordered me to pack all my newspapers from the plaza.
“The second time he harassed me was the day Governor Udom Emanuel was given his Certificate of Return, on Tuesday this week he came back again and reminded me that he has commanded me not to display newspapers again.
“I pleaded with him that I will park my newspapers and while was I trying to do so he slapped and injured me.”
However, the Chairman of the Ibom Plaza Management, Ima Umoh, denied alleged harassments of vendors by his members.
He said, “The idea was to sanitise the place against hoodlums and we asked them not to display their papers because by so doing, they attract hoodlums. We had issues their leaders came and we have settled. They should go back and sell their papers.”
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