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No going back on Ladipo clean up – Fashola

By on March 4, 2013

Ladipo-MarketLagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola, yesterday inspected the shut Auto Spare-parts Market, Ladipo, in Mushin Local Government Area of the state, declaring that the government would reopen it once the traders spearhead a clean-up exercise.

The governor added that the traders must also sign an undertaken that they would not trade take on the road or the edges of the canal.

The market was shut in the early hours of Monday, following repeated warnings and visits by the Commissioner for Environment, Mr. Tunji Bello and the Chairman of the Taskforce on Environmental and Special Offences, CSP Bayo Sulaiman, which were not heeded.

However, the governor’s visit to the market followed pleas by the traders and the leadership of the Igbo Council in the state, led by Professor Anya O. Anya, who visited the State House, Ikeja last Monday to present the new council members to the governor.

Though no trading was going on when the governor visited, evidence of the environmental degradation, which led to the closure could be found on the damaged roads in the area, disused piles of spare parts and the shanties used for trading on the sides of the canal.

Speaking to newsmen after the inspection during which he also addressed leaders of the traders, Governor Fashola, who described the state of the market and its environs as “massive degradation of a section of Lagos”, however, said the good thing in the visit was that the traders had seen the lack of caution in their deed and were ready to make amends.

“It is a massive degradation of a section of Lagos and this is not acceptable. People should not carry on like this. But what is, perhaps, worthy of note, is that those who are involved have seen the error of what they have done and are ready to work with us to clean-up, and I have said here that they must take the lead,” the governor said.

Speaking particularly about the canal in the market blocked by refuse from the traders, Fashola said: “The canal poses a lot of danger and we are expecting heavy rains. I don’t want to come back here to pick any dead body. We built the canal and we must make it work by not trading on it and not dumping refuse in it.

“People told me that they picked engine parts, spareparts and other things from the canal. It must stop.”

The governor said that there is now an agreement between the traders and the government to work together to clean up the place and continue with the business there.

Earlier, while addressing the leadership of the market, led by its President General, Comrade Ikechukwu Animalu, Governor Fashola made it clear to them that before government would reopen the market, the traders must clean-up the place and put strategies in place to ensure that there would be no trading on the roads in the area and no reversal to the old situation that led to its closure.

He directed the traders to work with the Mushin Local Government authorities to effect the clean-up and sanitation of the market.

Responding, Animalu, agreed that the environmental situation at the market was bad and apologised on behalf of the traders, pledging that he would lead them to clean it up as well as ensure that there would be no more trading either on the road or on the canal.

Animalu, who said he came into office last year, also pledged that the traders would henceforth maintain high level of environmental sanitation in the market including keeping the canal clean and free of any materials that could block the free flow of rain water.