Traders Hail Obi’s Sanitation Strides

The Amalgamated Market Traders Association of Anambra State (AMATAS), an umbrella body of all traders in Anambra State, has commended Governor Peter Obi for embarking on massive environmental sanitisation in Onitsha.

Dr Okwudili Ezenwankwo, President-General of AMATAS, gave the commendation on Monday while speaking to our correspondent in Onitsha, Anambra.

It would be recalled that in the last two weeks, state environmental officials had embarked on clearing of weeds and evacuation of refuse; while law enforcement agents had chased away hoodlums at the Upper Iweka and Bridge-Head axis of Onitsha.

Law enforcement agents also drove away roadside traders and demolished shops and structures on drainage ways as well as those that extended beyond the drainage system throughout Onitsha.

Ezenwankwo said that the exercise had given Onitsha a facelift and made it look like a place in which reasonable people lived and earned their livelihood.

“Well, it is commendable; this is what we have been looking for since.

“Anambra State is a place that people should come and live and not a place that people will come and do anything you like and go away with it.

“What the governor is doing within the Head-Bridge and on the expressway in Onitsha is commendable; we want him to do more.

“We urge him to beautiful that expressway; that is what everybody is expecting for now as long as we know.

“Not only the Head-Bridge to beautify Onitsha, Nnewi and Awka, the urban areas. To give Onitsha another face that people would be happy.’’

Ezenwankwo appealed to traders to desist from trading on the streets, stressing that most markets had enough shops and space to accommodate them.

“Well, we have been saying this time without number that traders will desist from trading on the streets. There are shops in each and every market.

“As I am talking to you now, if you go inside Ochanja market, we have about 7,000 empty shops.

“I do not know why traders will start trading on the streets; they should go to any nearby market and take shops, it is affordable.

“So we urge all of them to go out of the main road and enter into the market and do their business; I can tell you that God will protect the traders wherever they are.

“But if they are trading on the main roads, it is unacceptable,’’ he said.