By Donald Iorchir and Awaal Gata
Barely one week after the demolition of kuje Main market, the authority of the Area Council has started constructing new structures on the demolished sites.
It could be recalled that Kuje’s market was demolished amidst protests by traders last week, despite the council’s officials claim that “there was an agreement.”
However, speaking at the foundation laying ceremony for new structures on Tuesday, the council’s Chairman, Hon. Ishaku Shaban Tete, said the demolition was carried out so that modern structures would be built in the market.
He said his administration was working with Greenhouse International Venture, the company handling the project, under Public Private Partnership (PPP).
Tete pointed out that the market had been in a “bad shape for years”, hence his administration’s effort towards modernizing it with “infrastructural facilities” which will boost the economy of the area.
He said he was not happy that some of the traders were ‘displaced’ during the ‘clearing of site’ last week, adding that alternative measures had been put in place to “cushion that, pending when the developer finishes the first phase of the project.”
The council boss also emphasized that the council’s effort was geared towards “not witch-hunting anybody,” but rather towards making “lives and businesses more conducive for all of us.”
He pleaded with the displaced traders, saying, “when the project is completed all of us will feel a sign of relieve and our challenges will also be a thing of the past.”
According him, “when the market is completed, some of its benefits will include: proper sanitation, proper organization, easy access in terms of any emergency, police station for settling disputes and a bank for easy access to savings.”
He further appealed to the traders and residents to cooperate with the council and the developer for “smooth developing of the market.”
The PPP committee has already taken stock of shop owners and traders, so that they can be considered first when the shops are completed.
The market, the chairman revealed; the developer promised to complete the first phase in six months.
In her own remark, the council’s head of works department, Mrs. Dupe Musa, said the idea was conceived by the Chairman and when he shared it with her unit and other professionals, “we all deemed it perfect, and today it will soon become a reality.”
Speaking on behalf of the traders, Chairman, FCT National Association of Nigerian Traders, Prince Edozie Ugwu, stressed that, “this is a welcome development because this is what we have been encouraging the politicians to do for traders.”
He called on the council’s authority to give traders whose shops were displaced the priority when the constructions are completed.
Also speaking, the Managing Director of Greenhouse Ventures, Barr. Osa Ogunkorode, said he wanted “everybody to participate in the facilities that is going to be made available in this market.”
On how the construction will be carried out, he said they had divided the development into two phases; the first phase will witness the construction of about 120 lock-up shops because “majority of the people are in that section of the market.”
On the issue of having a bank in the market, the MD said they were working with Aso Savings and Loan. He however, called on the public to ignore any sale of application forms from ‘outside’ because the forms are sold only in his office.
Also speaking, the Gomo of Kuje, Alhaji Haruna Tanko Jibrin, commended the Chairman for “conceiving and making efforts toward making the project a reality.
The Gomo, however, appealed to government at all levels to accept their constitutional responsibilities of providing infrastructural facilities and other services in line with the needs, yearning and aspirations of the low or no income earners.