Residents of Ibadan are alarmed by traders’ indiscriminate displays of goods on the city’s main roadways and the resulting risk to lives and property.
Almost all of the main streets and highways in the capital city of Oyo State have been taken over by traders, according to a cross-section of the people who talked with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday.
Residents claimed that the activities of traders had made the regular traffic jams in the city much worse.
In addition to traffic congestion, they said that the city was also plagued by overcrowding, road narrowing, and occasionally outright road barricading in some locations due to the activity of the traders.
NAN said that traders in Iwo-Road, Monatan, Gate, Mokola, Dugbe, Challenge, Oje, Apata, Ojoo, and Omi-Adio had converted the roadways into locations for displaying their goods, and that the majority of pedestrian walkways had also changed into extensions of stores.
Struggle For Right Of Way
A community leader, Badmus Akindele, decried the situation at Mokola, saying that the area had been turned to a death trap for unsuspecting traders, commuters and passersby.
Mr Akindele said: “Traders have turned the walkway and the service lane to their shops, replacing their usual trays with tables, thus forcing passersby to struggle with motorists, tricyclists and commercial motorcyclists for right of way”.
Mr Akindele wants the state government to look critically into the matter and enforce compliance.
Furthermore, he wants authorities to apprehend any trader found operating on the road and punish them, using every legal means.
He said that the government could also ensure that such traders were made to forfeit their goods to serve as deterrent to others.
Another resident, Munirat Kajola, urged the state government to evacuate street traders within Ibadan metropolis to allow for easy movement by passersby, motorists and commuters.
A civil servant, Johnson Adeagbo, said street trading had resulted in accidents that had claimed many lives.
A resident of Omi-Adio in Ido Local Government Area, Christopher Olorode, described the popular Oja-Agbe (farmers’ market) in the area as a disaster waiting to happen, if the government did not do something urgent.
Mr Olorode called on the government to relocate the market to another area or move the traders, who usually trade on the main road, inside and erect a perimeter fence to forestall a looming danger.
NAN Report About The Crowded Roadways
Indeed, the menace of roadside trading in Ibadan city has remained a thing of concern to many.
The administration also established a number of neighborhood markets through the local governments in Ibadan municipality, where people could engage in buying and selling.
However, most neighborhood markets have been deserted by the traders, while they have found the roads as safe haven for their business.
A director in the state Ministry of Environment, said that the government was not taking the menace, particularly in Ibadan metropolis, with levity.
The director, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that some measures had been taken by the state government to address the menace.
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According to him, the government had, on many occasions, given street traders notices to vacate the roads.
Also, erring traders would have been made to face the wrath of the law upon the expiration of the vacation notices.
Furthermore, the director also said officials of the ministry had carried out sensitisation to roadside traders at Molete under-bridge, Challenge, Bodija, Apata and Oojo, among other areas, to let them know the hazards associated with the practice.
