Traders in the Ogbaru Main/Relief Market, under the aegis of Ogbaru Relief Market Traders’ Forum, Anambra State, have commended Governor Chukwuma Soludo over the dissolution of market leadership excos in the state.
The group stated that the dissolution has restored permanent peace which had eluded Anambra markets since the flawed elections took place.
Soludo had, in May, sacked 32 market excos over “flawed” and “manipulated” elections.
Making the commendation on Wednesday, the chairman of the Forum, Mr Felix Nwankwo, told journalists in Onitsha that the steps taken by the governor through the Commissioner for Trade and Commerce, Mr Obinna Ngonadi, showed that they were abreast with happenings in all the markets in the state.
Nwankwo, who was flanked by his secretary, Chief Uche Okoli, said “most of the committee members had overstayed their welcome having stayed beyond the life span of a tenure while others rigged their way to the seat of the chairman during elections.
“Some have stayed in office for over five to eight years running as caretaker committee members without the conduct of democratic elections as they used money to oil the palms of those at the helm of affairs.
“Others, who also won the election as anointed candidates of their sponsors, had smooth sail as they openly rigged the elections to the detriment of their rivals who had nobody to question the flawed elections.
“That is why we commend Governor Soludo and the commissioner for rescuing the markets in the state from the hands of selfish individuals who believed that the markets were their personal properties.
“They never expected that the government would oppose them and bring sanity in the markets in the state in less than two months of assumption of office.
“We thank God Almighty for the gift of the governor and the commissioner and hope that by the time they will complete their first tenure of four years and commence another tenure of four years, making it eight years, markets in the state and other sectors of the economy would have been better off than they are now.
“The governor had, in his electioneering campaign era, pledged to turn the state to Dubai of Africa and we believe he will do that having started on a good note by sanitising the markets.
“There is every hope that the markets under the watch of Hon. Commissioner Ngonadi will be better off than what they were when he came on board, having started on a clean slate by sacking market leaders who boasted that they owned the markets.”
