Abia State Commissioner for Trade and Investment, Dr. Cosmos Ndukwe said one of the major breakthroughs of his short stay in office so far has been to move traders and marketers in the State to the areas provided by the extant laws of the State as market trade posts.
In an exclusive interview with ABIA ONLINE, Ndukwe equally disclosed that the Ministry under his watch was able to clear the State of street trading, with particular reference to the Isi-Gate area in Umuahia and Enyimba in Aba, thereby making sure that people move back to Ubani Ibeku market as well as Ariaria International Market.
According to him, before he took over the reigns in the Ministry of Trade and Investment, “Our highways and expressways were being abused by traders, for instance we have films and recorded videos of what was happening at where we call Enyimba; Enyimba filling station that was turned into a market place. We have Plazas being raised around that area, the whole of the Port Harcourt axis became a horrible sight, people raised tables, shanties along the highways; accidents upon accidents happened and lives were being lost. So this became a worrisome issue to the Governor because the he is people-centric and once the people start calling about such menace, there’s need to do something.”
He added that within the period under review, his Ministry was able to “clear that Enyimba, open up traffic, make it accessible for people, work round the clock, provide security stop points and be able to push people back into Ariaria, because almost, about 7000 shops were vacant in Ariaria, all the traders pushed themselves out to the expressway and those areas are not areas provided by our extant laws as trade posts. So we achieved that.”
On the achievements at Isi-Gate Umuahia, the former Deputy Speaker, Abia State House of Assembly, noted that the place had become another beehive of all sort of criminal activities and street trading; people are being waylaid within the evening hours while traders trooped out from Ubani Ibeku market and other markets around to that street.
He praised the efforts of the State Governor, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu for paying attention to the yearnings of the people by building an ultramodern market at Amuzukwu for the relief market on perishable items which he said made much easier to push those who turned the Isi-Gate axis, the rail line as market back to Ubani Ibeku market.
“I think these two (Isi-Gate Umuahia and Enyimba in Aba) gave the State a terrible breather, they gave us a whole lot of accolades especially the Governor who was supportive of that move, who gave us the backing and who equally came in person to supervise and inspect what we did at Isi-Gate and Enyimba,” Ndukwe recalled.
On what Government intends to do with the areas cleared, the Commissioner hinted that steps of beautification have already started at Isi-Gate, Umuahia as it has started moulding flower buds with the intention of turning that place to green area. He however attributed the delay to the fact that “there are trees you will not plant during the dry season, there are some grasses that cannot do well in the dry season except if there is any other magic you can do, saying that filling the place, cleaning it up, sand filling were gradually ongoing in the place.
He expressed the hope that ‘by the time we’re through with it, it will turn out a beautiful place.’ adding “At Enyimba, We have carried out a lot of map outs, clean up exercise and then beautification through the Abia State Property Management Agency.”