By Oyibo Salihu
Lokoja
Kogi state government has begun the evacuation of marketers and motorists operating illegally outside the perimeters of the Lokoja International Market.
It has also embarked on the removal of illegal structures erected within and around the premises of the old market in Lokoja to create vehicular movement in the area.
The Commissioner for Environment, Mrs. Rosemary Osikoya, who led the enforcement team in Lokoja, vowed that government would not relent in ensuring that “there will be no loitering and arbitrary parking of vehicles outside the premises of the Lokoja International Market.”
She said: “The essence of the exercise is to ensure a clean environment for the market as well as free flow of traffic along the road and around the market. There are enough parking spaces inside the market where motorists have been advised to make use of instead of clustering along the major road to cause nuisance and accident.
“Government is also focusing on ensuring adequate sanitation within and outside the market to avert the problem of unhealthy dumping of refuse.”
She said government had been able to carry out a lot of sensitisation and enlightenments on how to provide a conducive environment for marketers, maintaining that “there is no going back in the enforcement of the environmental laws in the interest of the people.”
Osikayo blamed the previous administrations in the state for their inability to “do the right thing,” saying that the present administration would not allow itself to “fall into the same pit.”
