Traders at Kwali market are complaining that the market does not have infrastructure, and the situation has been dragging their businesses aground.
In an interview with our correspondent, the President of the town’s Market Women Association (MWA), Mrs. Florence Ogidan, said the market does not have enough shops, roads, regular electricity and water.
According to her, “there are no enough shops in the market. As a trader, even with your money without the right connections, you might no get a shop. Many of us now display our goods in the open, and you know it doesn’t spell well in the rainy season.”
Speaking about the roads, she said: “the roads are bad and worst in the rainy season. A vehicle convening your goods cannot bring them directly to your shop; it has to off load them somewhere and you get a wheelbarrow to carry them to your shop. If there were roads, it would have been different.”
On the incessant power failure that rocks the market, the President lamented that: “In a normal market, there is light always so that those that sell perishable goods can refrigerate them. But we don’t have that here. Most of us lose millions of Naira because of lack of light.”
Another trader at the market, Mrs. Josephine Joseph, said the situation “has been taking our businesses backward. We are not given the right boost to trade in the market.”
She complained that the area council doesn’t miss in collecting revenues from them, but doesn’t mind to renovate or upgrade the facilities at the market.
“The area council officials know how to collect revenues from us. They know when to come and know how to pressure us to pay, but they won’t know how to repair the market. If we must pay, they must use our money in repairing the market so that we can enjoy our trading,” she said.
Similarly, a clothes seller in the market, Alhaji Isah Maiyadi, was with the view that the council’s authority needs to complement the traders’ cooperation in terms of revenue payment by never neglecting structural development of the market.
He said doing that would boost the areas’ economy because people would rush to trade there.
“If the market is good, there would be many businessmen, and that would mean a lot of revenues for the area council. But if there is no good market centre, nothing like that would happen,” he explained.
However, Mrs. Ogidan called on the chairman of the area council, Hon. Ibrahim Daniel to rehabilitate the Kwali main market, to boost socio-economic growth of the area.
She also urged the chairman to construct boreholes for the use of the butchers operating in the market.
Ogidan further pleaded with the chairman to build public toilets in the market for the benefit of traders.
She said that her leadership would continue to support and co-operate with the authorities of the council for the overall development of the area, urging the council chairman to carry the women along in the scheme of things.
She however, commended the chairman for the projects he carried out within one year in office.
Responding, the chairman said plans were underway to rehabilitate the market, adding that his administration would continue to focus on the developmental projects in the area.
He said that his administration had executed good number of projects in kwali and its environs, which include roads construction, provision of boreholes and rural electrifications among others.
Daniel, however, appealed to the people of kwali to join hands with him to move kwali to forward.
