Enugu: Lawmaker laments demolition of shops at Ogige Nsukka market

The member representing Igboeze South Constituency, Enugu State, Harrison Ogara, yesterday, lamented the demolition of shops at Ogige Nsukka Market without compensation and alternative allocations to the affected traders.

Ogara, in a memo, drew the attention of the state government to the “dangers of evicting over 7,000 traders from Ogige Nsukka Market, without any alternative market to relocate them”.

According to Ogara, “As I speak, these traders with market value of over N10b have moved their wares to their homes because there are no alternative markets”. He stated that the Aku Road Market the state government asked the traders to relocate to, was “essentially conceptualised by the then Nsukka Local Council under Tony Ugwu to be a Global System for Mobile communication (GSM) Market with less than 150 shops.”

Meanwhile, the state governor, Peter Ndubuisi Mbah, has been dragged to an Nsukka High Court in a landmark suit, which seeks to compel the state government to pay damages amounting to N50b as a result of the demolition.

In the suit, instituted by the registered trustees of the The Law Hub Development and Advocacy Center, Abuja, and The Ositadinma Okoro Empowerment Foundation, with the Governor of Enugu State and the Attorney General of the state as respondents, the litigants anchored their action on what they described as “the manifest gross violation of the fundamental rights and the planned invasion and demolition of shops of the over 10,000 traders of Ogige Market, Nsukka.”

The Suit No. N/73/2024, is praying for a declaration that the act of the respondents in giving traders of Ogige Market Nsukka,  72-hour notice to vacate their  property and shops, on May 22 2024, and the purported plan to use force to remove them and throw them out constitutes a violation of their fundamental rights to own movable and immovable properties as guaranteed by the Nigerian Constitution.

It would be recalled that the Enugu State government, in a move said to be designed for urban renewal, demolished a wide range of property across the state.

Affected by the demolition exercises are Our Saviour Institute of Science and Technology (OSISATECH), belonging to Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Ede; a motherless babies home belonging to the Nigerian Red Cross Society, in Enugu; sections of the Ogige Market, Nsukka, and a motor  park in Gariki, Awkunanaw, Enugu.

The institutions behind the action are seeking, among other reliefs, an Order of Perpetual Injunction “restraining the Respondents, whether by themselves, their agents, privies or otherwise howsoever from further harassing, intimidating, trailing, scaring away the traders of Ogige Market Nsukka, from their shops, and properties, arresting or detaining them upon the same facts constituting the complaints enumerated in this application or in any other manner infringing on the applicants’ fundamental rights.”

He added: “It is then surprising that that was where the “Ahithophels” of our time wrongly advised the Enugu government to move the thousands of traders to.

“The worst anybody close to His Excellency could do to him is to continue to sycophantically, advise him to shut his eyes against the impending catastrophe and deaths that could be recorded in time to come because of this singular action.

“The current chaotic situation at Ogige Market currently is better imagined than experienced.

“Inside the market, there are thousands who are just traders as well as tenants. There are thousands who picked facilities from the nearby community banks to stock up these shops, paying back as they make sales.

“If we compensate the shop owners, what do we do to the displaced traders who feed from their daily incomes?

“It is even more scorching when we learnt that these traders in the past few months have paid 25k as yearly taxes to government. If we knew we will be demolishing the market, why did we force them to pay the tax for the year 2024” He suggested that government could release fund, go to Ikpa Market, about three kilometres away from town and get the market fixed for the traders to move in.

“The other suggestion I made was that to avoid heavy collateral damage, an interchange like this would not be too good inside the town. Opi Junction (the gateway to the North) with a large expanse of land could have made more sense to serve vehicles coming to and from the Northern region and other parts of Nigeria.

“It is dangerous to continue to urge the government on, on an issue as delicate as this.

“It will certainly be an act of cowardice if I decide to keep mum in the face of the impending tragedies that may follow an action such as this”, he said

The state government, as part of her urban renewal programme, had started demolishing shops and other businesses in areas where it designated for Enugu modern transport terminal. Places such as the Holy Ghost parks, Gariki Market, Abakpa Market and Ogige Market in Nsukka have all been demolished.