Hundreds of displaced traders at the Old Scout Camp Market in Molete, Ibadan, Oyo Stateon Tuesday staged a protest over alleged inequitable allocation of new shops.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the traders, under the aegies of the Amazon Women Organisation, marched from the market to the nearby Splash FM Radio to register their displeasure.
The peaceful protest, which attracted scores of residents, hindered human and vehicular movement on the busy Molete Road.
Speaking to NAN on the development, the spokesperson of the group, Bukola Adegoke, said the protesters learnt that a new list of traders was being compiled for shop allocation at their expense.
“We gathered that the Ministry of Environment and Habitat has hijacked the exercise from the Ministry of Trade, Investment and Industry, which is supposed to handle it,” Adegoke said.
Adegoke claimed that the protesters were being shortchanged in the allocation of shops on the ground that many of them were petty traders.
She also accused some members of the Oyo State Youth Empowerment Scheme of being involved in the alleged illegal allocation of shops.
But Cosmos Oni, the Information Officer in the Oyo State Ministry of Environment and Habitat, told NAN that his ministry had nothing to do with shop allocation.
“Allocation of shops at the Old Camp Market is the duty of the Ministry of Trade, Investment and Industry,” Oni said.
The state government last year issued a quit notice to traders at Molete, Ogunpa and Challenge areas of Ibadan under its Urban Renewal Programme.
The displaced traders regrouped at the Old Scout Camp before they were again dislodged, with many of them trading on the highways.
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