Petty traders at the popular market commonly referred to as Tombia market who hurriedly relocated on February 11, 2024 in compliance to Bayelsa Government’s directive are counting their losses and regretting the move over alleged gross insensitivity by the Gov Douye Diri-led government.

Our correspondent learnt that the traders who eked out a living from the strategically located Timbia area of Yenagoa, Bayelsa capital were flushed out of their trading posts so that visitors for the second term inauguration ceremony of Governor Douye Diri will have a serene scenery while driving from the airport.

Checks conducted on the market relocation indicate that the exercise was conducted without planning and interest of the traders.

Traders at the new site of Okutukutu/Etegwe have slammed the state government for relocating them to an “uninhabitable and swampy land with no shelters, security nor convenience when they are not animals”'.

A visit to the newly relocated site by members of the Federated Correspondents’ Chapel (FCC) of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Bayelsa, uncovered the woes of hundreds of traders who heeded the government’s call to move.

The correspondents were on the site to have first-hand information on the condition of the market due to several complaints by hapless market men and women who were bitter about the losses they have been incurring for nearly one month after they relocated.

Most of the worst hit are women who sell perishable vegetables, tomatoes and pepper lamented that poor patronage due to lack of adequate publicity and political will to develop the new site let to their goods going bad without sales.

One of the sellers who deals in beef, Gbenga Bamigboye, said: “There is nothing to show that this place is a market.”

He said the government cannot just wake up and order them to a forest and swampy place without adequate preparations.

Gbenga, who chose to stay and run his business at an alternative location called Alakeme market, stated: “For me, everybody has a choice nobody is feeding anybody. Anybody that feels like staying there should go to that place; after all, the market is not supposed to be in one place.

“Some people have space there while others like me do not have; that is why the place is scanty and people prefer to come to this place.

“But if the place is well organized, many people will like to stay there. There is no way you can force the abattoir people to move to that place because you are not the one feeding them.

“That place is not like a marketplace. It is just like a place where they dump cows. That place is supposed to be where cows will stay like the way Bayelsa Palm is because they have pond water there and they have a bush there, the cows will go into the bush and feed and come out to drink water. That place is not meant for human beings at all.

“They don’t have human feelings for us and it is regrettable. Go to Port Harcourt, before they move anybody to any place, they will first of all put the place in order then you move them.

“Look at when Alamieyesigha built the Swali Market, people were not there before. But he built and roofed the place and finished it before people moved to that place. They could have taken care of all the necessary things before telling people to move to that place.”

He recalled that the governor visited the market during his campaign to canvas for votes, adding that the traders in turn campaigned and voted for him massively.

He said: “So, why will you treat us like animals? This private market we are, the man uses the opportunity to grab the crowd. That place is not like a marketplace place.”

Also speaking, the Chairman of Okutukutu Etegwe Market, Alhaji Dahiru, said the government sent traders to the place without doing anything to make the place inhabitable.

He said due to a lack of security, water, access roads and other amenities, many refused to relocate to the market.

He said: “They are supposed to do road and sand fill the market. Now customers can’t come into the market to buy things. Since morning we have not sold anything. Our perishable goods have spoiled. The market is now divided because all of us agreed to come here but other markets are cropping up here and there and that is why we are not selling.

“We are asking that the government should look into this matter expeditiously, let the government find a way of making everybody move to this place. Let the governor seal the other markets over there to make this place function.”

Another trader, Favour Sunday, who sells perishable goods, said since they relocated to the new site, business has been dull.

His words: “Since we came to this place, some of the marketers have relocated to the former place.

“Here, when customers come here, they complain that they can’t get everything they need and so they have stopped coming here. And because we like this place, we cannot follow them and our goods are perishing.

“Let the government sink a borehole for us, do the road, install solar lights and build toilets for us.”

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