.Traders clash with security operatives
By Valentine Amanze
Online Editor
Traders are regrouping and restrategising over the Imo State government’s demolition of the Ekeukwu market in Owerri, the Imo State capital, at the weekend, which led to their clash with the security operatives.
While the traders are still counting their losses, some natives are lamenting the destruction of their ancestral worship centres and properties on Saturday, August 26, 2017.
Occupants of the city’s biggest market had resumed for business on Saturday, August 26, 2017, only to be stopped by heavily guarded bulldozers that pulled down their structures.
The state government explained that the traders failed to heed to the warnings after they had been informed about the demolition and the planned relocation of the market.
The people, on the other hand, said that the action was coming earlier than they had anticipated and accused the government of not providing an alternative.
The market relocation has been a major issue between the state government and traders of the market as well as some indigenes of Owerri, who see the location of the market as that of their ancestral home.
It would be recalled that the traders had rejected the relocation of the market without adequate provision of alternative by suing the state government over the issue.
But on Friday, the Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, issued a press statement signed by the Deputy Chief of Staff Operations, Kingsley Uju, ordering the traders in the market to move out within 48 hours after the release of the statement.