Despite the heat being generated by the ongoing war against illegal street trading in Abia, Governor Okezie Ikpeazu has vowed that there is no going back as far as the exercise is concerned.

Ikpeazu said he will continue the battle until the streets of Aba and Umuahia are cleansed and sanitised and decorum restored in the cities.

Government officials and traders in Aba have been having running battles over the attempt by government to relocate them to new sites but Governor Ikpeazu, speaking through his Chief Press Secretary, Godwin Adindu, said the exercise is for the general good and part of a large scale programme of infrastructural renewal and environmental restoration of the city of Aba for which the government created the Aba Urban Renewal Office and which is aimed at sanitising the city and restoring its original map.

Ikpeazu emphasised in a statement issued yesterday in Umuahia that the broad-based programme of restructuring Aba is a cardinal policy thrust of the his administration and which is being pursued with passion, dedication and every sense of duty. He said that he has had to conduct a general review and overhauling of the leadership of the markets and the different caretaker committees established by government to oversee issues concerning the markets.

The governor said after the relocation of illegal street traders to the Goodmorning Market in Ngwa Road, the train will move down to the Abattoir Market at Waterside, which has to be relocated because of the planned dredging and expansion of the Aba River, and from there to other locations where street trading constitutes an environmental nuisance to the city.

“It is for this reason that the government has had to dissolve many of the committees and leadership of the many market associations in Aba, and also had to appoint a Market Review and Development Committee headed by Mr. Solomon Nwaigwe with the brief to conduct a general review of the state of the markets and proffer solutions for charting a new course for the markets,” Dr Ikpeazu declared.

He noted that street trading and street hawking cause a lot of menace both to traffic flow and environmental decency while also posing a great risk to the life of the traders, saying that is why government has provided alternative market places for illegal street traders.

According to him, “Nowhere in the world is the culture of street trading tolerated anymore and therefore Aba traders and residents must cooperate with government agents in the efforts to sanitise Aba and bring decorum to the city and its markets and desist from actions that could lead to confrontation with constituted authority.

“There is also need to disabuse the minds of general public against the propaganda peddled by some disgruntled elements that the exercise is targeted against non-indigenes. Aba is a melting pot for all ethnic nationalities in the country. Aba does not only belong to Abians, it belongs to Nigerians and the world. Governor Ikpeazu is rebuilding a new city for the world.

“Therefore, political jobbers and enemies of the state who are cashing in on this sanitation exercise to generate crisis and foment trouble are well advised to rethink their mischief. They must desist from acts and statements capable of inciting Aba residents against one another and causing the breach of the prevailing peace in the land.

“Government recognises that the mandate to rebuild Aba and other major Abia cities would certainly come with sacrifices and requires the co-operation of all Abians and this is in the overall interest of us all.”

•Photo shows Governor Ikpeazu.

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