•Bayelsans convert major Yenegoa roads to shopping centres
•Residents, FRSC, motorists: it’s a carnage waiting to happen
Yenagoa is the capital of Bayelsa, an oil-rich state. It boasts of being the headquarters of a state that gets one of the highest revenue allocations from the Federal Government. Besides, it is the capital city of President Goodluck Jonathan’s home state. But Yenagoa lacks one major commercial entity – modern markets.
Yenagoa seems to be the only capital city in the country without a regulated, organised and well-mapped market. Apart from former Governor Diepreye Alameiseigha who constructed the Swali Market, no administration, including Governor Seriake Dickson’s, has paid attention to the need for befiting markets in this city.
Residents of this homogeneous Ijaw city are lovers of commerce. Everyday, including Sunday, is a market day, but the marketplace is a disaster. In fact, people sit on a keg of gunpowder and roam a minefield everyday in the name of market. All the markets are located on major roads.
Buyers and sellers are aware of the dangers. To them, life must go on, especially as the government has failed to provide an alternative for them.
Communities that make up Yenagoa have converted major roads into their communal marketplaces. Residents converge on roads to transact businesses without fear of vehicular movements.
Some markets hold by the roadside. Such markets are Tombia at the popular Tombia Roundabout on the Yenagoa-Mbiama Road and Swali on Swali Road.
On Tuesday and Wednesday , for instance, a stretch of Mbiama-Yenagoa Road, the only road that leads to the city, is occupied by Akenfa and Agudiama communities. Also, on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, the people of Okaka, Igbogene and Opolo block another section of Mbiama-Yenagoa Road for buying and selling.
A section of Isaac Boro Expressway is the marketplace for Kpansia community on Saturday. The Gwegwe Road is occupied by the people of Ovom every Sunday.
Residents and visitors in Yenagoa groan on each market day. It is a day of traffic snarl and rising frustration among motorists. The Agudiama and Akeinfa axis on the Mbiama-Yenagoa Road is the worse hit. A stretch of traffic jam resembling a typical hold-up during a rush hour on Ikorodu Road, Lagos State, emerges on the popular Mbiama-Yenagoa Road.
The gridlock covering kilometres hinders movements and causes loss of man hours. Traders carelessly occupy the roads and flamboyantly display their wares. They are not perturbed by the presence of different sizes of vehicles which try to manoeuver their ways to safety.
Some of them even ignore dangers posed by the vehicles to advertise their wares. Buyers, without trepidation, stoop to bargain and select their goods of interest. They are, indeed, undisturbed by the agonizing drivers who try assiduously to avoid colliding with them and their wares.
Despite any case of emergency, every vehicular movement along the Mbiama-Yenagoa road stops at the Akenfa and Agudiama axis on market days. The situation becomes more worrisome owing to the location of major security and educational institutions along the area.
The Pobeni Camp which houses the Headquarters of the Central Naval Command (CNC) of the Nigerian Navy is situated there. Also, the South-South campus of the Nigerian Law School is sited in the area.
In fact, it is a herculean task for naval personnel to engage in their official security movement on market days because of road blockade by traders. They helplessly see a stretch of gridlock covering their gate. Even after work, naval officers and ratings stay back in their various duty posts till night when the market must have closed.
Out of frustration, a naval officer describes the roadside market in a capital city as a sign of an irresponsible government. The man who identifies himself simply as Emmanuel wonders why the government would allow markets to be sited on the road.
“This is a ridicule of a capital city. How can people convert roads to market? This is the same road that government officials including the governor pass with their sirens.
“I have been in other states, this is the first of its kind. It is even unbelievable that a whole capital city does not have regulated ultra-modern markets.
“It is sad what we pass through on this road each time there is a market. The government should as a matter of urgency identify safe areas and build markets for these people”, he said.
It is the same tale of anguish in other markets by residents. Apart from traffic gridlock, roadside markets pose great dangers to the lives of the buyers and sellers. There have been reports of vehicles ramming into the markets, injuring people and sometimes killing them.
But traders blame their occupation of roads on lack of space inside the markets. A seller of processed cassava popularly called garri at Okaka market told Niger Delta Report to hold the government responsible.
The woman who identifies herself as Mama Mercy, however, claims that there are more sales on the roadside than inside the market. She says the low sales is caused by the hold-up, which prevents people from coming inside to patronise them. Mercy also maintains that there is no structured market in the city. She laments the chaotic and rural nature of the available markets.
She says: “We do not have a space inside the market. The market is not taken care of by the government and there are more sales by the road side compared to the inside. We experience bad market when we stay inside as a result of the hold-up caused at the entrance of the markets. So, most buyers prefer buying outside, than coming in.
“Bayelsa has no market. How can market woman sell along the roadside in a capital city? The market is not well-structured at all. Everywhere is scattered. If you go to other cities outside this state, each market is well-structured with established lines for various goods well-mapped out”.
Mercy further says that she is ready to vacate the road and relocate to any market that will be built for them by the government. She expresses fears that the government has a tendency of making stalls and shops in such markets unaffordable to the poor adding that most times relations of persons in the corridors of power are allocated the shops.
Also, Ruth Nicholas who sells fish in the same market agrees that all the markets in the capital city have no shops. She complains of unhygienic environment in the markets observing that heaps of refuse dumps are sited close to the markets. The ground, she says, is marshy and dirty. Ruth knocks the government and says it has refused to redeem its promise of building befitting markets.
“All the markets are all the same because all of them have no shops. We sell along the roadside. The market environment is dirty.
“We are used to the government and their stories. They had initially promised to build good markets. But those promises are lies. Even if they provide it, the shops wont get to us.
“This is Nigeria. It is not really our intention to sell by the roadside. But the government always promises and fails. They have not built any shops from my own personal observation”.
Ruth decries effects of the rainy season on their business because of lack of stalls. She says they conduct their business in the rain under umbrellas. She begs: “The government should come to our
aid because the rain is really destroying our goods. Since the government could not provide shops for us, we sell under our umbrellas.
“Most times, these umbrellas cannot withstand heavy downpour. I have been suffering from fever as a result of the heavy downpour. The rain is spoiling most of our goods”.
Ruth further laments life-threatening dangers posed by their roadside commercial activities. She recalls that vehicles sometimes ram into sellers destroying their goods and sometimes knocking them down.
“The dangers are numerous to mention”, she says. “But let me start with my life. Most times, l am scared of selling by the roadside because we have encountered so many accidents like tricycles which are also called keke running into the market.They either destroy goods or knock down sellers”.
Despite occupying the roads, traders are harassed by persons who claim to be agents of the government. These agents collect rates from the roadside traders on each market day.
“The traders who sell at the roadside are always chased around by tax collectors. These group of people parade themselves around saying, that they are sent by the government. They collect N300 from us every market day.
“We don’t know where this money is going to because of the sanitary state of the market. Most people living around the market don’t have toilets in their homes. They convert the market to their toilets. Everywhere is always littered with human wastes”, Ruth says.
She appeals to the government to provide well-structured markets for Bayelsans. She also advised the government to understudy market development in other neighbouring states.
She says: “The government should provide good and well-structured markets for all Bayelsans. They should go to other states and see how market are built. They should provide these shops and make them affordable to all. The government should also assist us with money”.
Perhaps, to take people out of the road, an individual identified as Chief Osiri, has erected a large three-storey building at Tombia for the traders. The building which has stalls has yet to be completed. The traders avoided the stalls and continue to conduct their activities by the roadside.
Most of them complain that the rent for the stalls is expensive. Even persons who initially paid and experimented the stalls, vacated them for the roadside because of low patronage. Even buyers are not comfortable patronising persons occupying the building, which is an assemblage of pillars.
Mrs. comfort Ebieke, does her clothing business at Tombia market. She says the shops provided by Chief Osiri are expensive. “These shops; only the rich can afford them”, she says.
She adds: “We are really suffering. Matters related to market is supposed to be conducted by the government. They are supposed to provide small and affordable lock-up shops for us. We don’t have money.
“Selling by the roadside, itself, is risky. Accident, most times, happen on this road but God has been saving us. Secondly, we pay money everyday to sanitation workers. We pay N300 and if this money is not paid to them they end up beating us up and scattering our goods”.
For Ese Monday, who insists on occupying one of the stalls provided by Chief Osiri, business is dull. She pays over N40,000 annually for the shop, but she complains of “bad market”.
“We are passing through a very tough time. Most of the shops are now empty. People are now moving out of the shops to the roadside because traders by the roadside sell more than us who are in rented shops.
“The entrance of this market are most times blocked by these sellers and this is preventing the buyers from coming inside the market.
“The government should provide shop for everybody because if they had, I wouldn’t have been in this expensive shop.”
In fact, buyers are not left out of the anguish of Yenagoa market. Miss Kate Andrew is in Tombia market to buy foodstuff. She describes the market environment as muddy, mashy and dirty. “We are swimming in dirt”, she says.
She observes that roadside selling has created traffic snarl along the road adding that markets in Yenagoa cannot be compared to those in Port-Harcourt, Rivers State.
She says: “When I compare Bayelsa markets with the ones in Port-Hacourt, Bayelsa State is far behind. There is no market structure in the whole of Bayelsa state. In Port-Harcourt, we have modern market structures. Everything is well-structured and shops are readily available to traders at cheaper rates. So, the difference is clear.”
On dangers she faces each time she comes to a Yenagoa market, she complaints: “It’s a great risk. I think the government should look into this matter with immediate response. It is really a matter of life and death. Our lives are always at risk when we stand by the roadside”.
Lamenting the environmental hazards of roadside markets, an environmental expert and state Representative of Environmental Right Action (ERA), Comrade Alagoa Morris, describes them as nuisances. He observes that the government is missing out on the revenue generation potential and employment opportunities of structured markets.
“Apart from the traffic problem and littering of the environment, we also know that any serious accident will involve many lives”, he says adding that the state and local government areas should collaborate to build befitting markets.
“The way it is now, it is scattered”, he emphasised noting that the present markets in Yenagoa are conveying the image that Ijaw people are not organised.
He says: “For now, it defaces the environment when you are passing. If you are passing along that Kpansia or Igbogene, Agudiama axis during the market days including Zarama on the East-West Road, you will see the dangers posed by these markets.
“So, the government should do something about it to ensure that they save lives and give us a good environment in terms of aesthetics and beauty.
“Wastes from these markets are dumped any how and they find themselves to the drains and other environment. It is not healthy at all.”
Morris recalled that the former administration of Diepreye Alameseigha constructed Swali market with the intention of making it a standard marketplace in the state. But he says, the market has long been defaced.
“I remember during our tour last week with the commissioner, I heard one of them saying that the areas that were preserved for car parks inside that Swali market have all been turned into shops and shades.
“There is nowhere to park cars because the whole place is congested. That market was well-constructed that you can drive your car all throughout inside the market.
“But because of lack of organisation, corruption even within the market leadership body, every little space is being occupied. So, that Swali markets to be fair to the government was intended to be a standard market”, he says.
He decries the greed among wealthy government officials who are fond of taking over facilities built for the poor. According to him, top government functionaries took over most of the shops in the Swali after its construction and rented them to strangers.
“The administration of DSP constructed the market and most people even the civil servants have shops there and rented them out to strangers. How to get genuine people occupy those things are also important.
“Whatever you provide for the common people of this country, those in authority, top civil servants and their cronies want to have their own share and hire them out to other people.
“Even if you build low-cost houses today, these same people will come down, stoop so low to come and drag these things with the poor people. This attitude is very bad and it makes one to be afraid and hopeless.”
He adds: “The kind of well structured market l talk about are those with required utilities such as toilets, restaurants and enough parking spaces for cars and other vehicles that come to offload goods for traders.
“Such acquired land for markets should also take into consideration the need for expansion in the future. As is the case in some places, a security post should be considered and if need be a health facility.”
Also, the Sector Commander, Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Mr. Vincent Jack, says that virtually all the markets in Yenagoa had serious consequences on road use.
He says: “From our observations, virtually all the major markets spill over to the highway thereby causing serious traffic problems for road users. From also available statistics, we also notice that some vehicles occasionally ram into these markets because of their closeness to the roads.
“We have advised severally, appealing to the local government councils that are responsible for these markets to look at the way of if possible relocating them away from being close to our various highways.
“When you also consider the fact that there is an increase in vehicular movement in Yenagoa as a result of the upcoming political activities, it is advisable that all markets within our highways are relocated for the safety of our lives and properties.”
Commissioner for Environment Mr. Iniruo Wills says he will contact his Trade and Commerce Industry to unfold the programmes of the government on market development.
