… demolishes Abakpa street market, Eke Obinagu market
The Enugu Capital Territory Development Authority, ECTDA, on Friday, demolished illegal shops, container makeshift stalls and other sorts of artisan blockades that converted Abakpa streets into a trading hub.
As well, the Enugu Capital Territory Development Authority, ECTDA has demolished Eke Obinagu market along Enugu Abakalkli road.
At the Abakpa street market , the area mostly affected was Amuri road that stretched from Texaco bus stop, leading to NOWAS junction.
The agency said that the second phase of the demolition will include clearing of all makeshift tables, containers and illegal extensions along major streets of Abakpa that have turned the well planned estate into a food market slum.
ECTDA had in the past given quit notices to illegal occupants constituting nusiaance in different parts of the capital city such as in Abakpa, Emene, Uwani, Trans-Ekulu, Eke-Obinagu and some other places.
The agency had moved into New Market and sanitized the obstructions that had flown into the Enugu-onitsha road, same as it did at Eke-Obinagu on Thursday and has obtained court order to eject Kenyetta market traders from Uwani.
Responding on the reason for the Abakpa exercise, Chairman of ECTDA, Dr. Josef Onoh said: “Abakpa has become a slum and previous administrations in the state folded their arms and allowed the slum state to continue. The ugly situation has devalued properties in the area that residential houses and streets have now been converted into petty trading markets.
“In as much as we understand the Indigenous nature of the area, there is the Abakpa federal housing scheme and the indigenes have sold their birth rights that the whole place have now been converted to a market without adherence to the city plan or even a futuristic plan.
“A responsible government cannot continue to allow such degeneration where miscreants have taken advantage of the slum to create a high level of insecurity in Enugu, the capital territory.
“We should also note that during the EndSARS protest, Abakpa witnessed the most violent destruction because Abakpa habours most of the miscreants. So the demolition will continue until we sanitize Abakpa and free the streets that have now been converted to village markets.”
Meanwhile, the Enugu Capital Territory Development Authority, ECTDA, has demolished Eke Obinagu market along Enugu-Abakaliki road, which constituted traffic congestion along the Trans-African highway that connects Nigeria and Cameroon.
The old community market had with time flown into the road which made Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi at different occasions personally commanded traffic at the NNPC depot junction in Emene-Enugu.
The Capital Territory agency had severally marked the obstructing shops for demolition but the traders kept the surge into the road until it was finally cleared on Wednesday.
Speaking shortly after the demolition exercise, Chairman of ECTDA, Dr Josef Onoh said that even though the market could have existed for ages, development has caught up with the market, hence the need for the development control measure.
He said “Now with the influx of development, the community had made for an alternative market that is located off the service land of the federal highway and you are aware that that road is a super highway leading to Cameroon, it’s just a matter of time the federal government has started developing those areas and the activities in the market have constituted a nuisance.
“They have blocked the drainages, the high traffic of trading has caused the place to become a truckers’ park and the truckers have left where they are supposed to be to park along the road, doing their normal trading, constituting different forms of nuisance.
“In every society, as development progresses, people must transform and abide by the changes, but in their own case, their trading activities have gone beyond the normal and where they are trading is not legal.”
