The Abia State Government has explained that the environmental sanitisation exercise being enforced by the Aba Urban Renewal Office is only aimed at restoring decency and decorum  to the city.
 
The government said street trading and street hawking cause a lot of menace to traffic flow and environmental  decency and poses a great risk to the life of the traders, the reason of  which government provided alternative market places for illegal street traders.
 
“Nowhere in the world is the culture of street trading tolerated anymore, and therefore Aba traders and residents must cooperate with government agents in the efforts to sanitize Aba and bring decorum to the city and its markets and desist from actions that could lead to confrontation with constituted authority,” Governor Okezie Ikpeazu said yesterday.
 
Mr. Godwin Adindu, the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, in a statement yesterday said, “Government is making this appeal sequel to the incidents that have been occurring  in Aba in the last couple of days  where miscreants  and illegal street traders have  tried to resist the instructions and directives of the officials of the Aba Urban Renewal Office, leading to some misunderstanding between the illegal street traders and the government officials.
 
“Government wants to reemphasise that  the mission of sanitising  Aba  and reinventing the ancient city,  which is being executed through  the Aba Urban Renewal Office, is one cardinal  policy thrust which  the current administration is  pursuing  with passion,  dedication and  every sense of duty. Therefore, the street traders must adhere to the government directive to relocate to the newly constructed GoodMorning Market, along East Street, by Ngwa Road.
 
“Government will not tolerate any form of deviant acts that would seem to hinder the progress of this laudable vision of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu.