Oshodi made the news again, with a bulldozer at work. On orders of governor Akinwunmi Ambode, it rumbled through the Owonifari market,Oshodi, Lagos, crushed and flattened everything on sight within the market. But cries of traders at the market, roared louder than the bulldozer which pulled down the market. “I am finished, I just arrived from China with over N20million goods, they have crushed everything. Where will I start from?”
It was a cacophony of noise, curses, abuses mixed with rage and anger. Even by-standers and onlookers did not spare the authorities, as some of them muted abuses on the Ambode-led government for destroying the market with goods worth over one billion naira. A few others said: Traders in Lagos are stubborn, they will never hear, that is good for them!
Kenneth Madu, a trader in the market told Saturday Vanguard that he had been extremely brutalised as he lost everything he had laboured for in the market.
Battling emotion, Madu stated: “I just stocked my shop with new items I brought in from China a few days before the Christmas holiday. When I heard that they have sealed up the market, I rushed down to see if I can evacuate all my goods from the shop. They denied us access into the market and chose to demolish the market with all our goods. I had more than N20million goods in my own shop. Others had more. All attempt to remove our goods failed. I even offered to give the police N200,000 just to allow me remove my goods, they refused. I have been brutalised and traumatised. This is murder, they have killed us.”
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