Delta wades into Sapele Market leadership crisis

Nosa Akenzua – Asaba

Delta state government has waded into the Sapele Market crisis and urged stakeholders to honour the council management resolution which warned against fetish and lawless activities.

The leadership of the Sapele ultra-modern Market has been engulfed in crisis of confidence in the past one year as efforts to resolve the problem have been unsuccessful.

But, the state government through the Special Adviser on Peace Building and Conflict Resolution, Chief Edwin Uzor at a media conference in Asaba on Tuesday, said that the state government has invested much in ensuring that peace prevails for sustainable development, adding that it is the only way development can be meaningful.

“Sapele Traders Association had earlier written a petition to the Governor Ifeanyi Okowa over the issue of store allocation in the market and some persons took the shops and resold them at exorbitant prices as against the N3, 000 approved rent by government.

“As mediators, what we have done today is to ensure peaceful coexistence and we have advised both parties involved that the revocation done by the council should stand pending when we go to the market to be able to ascertain the claims made that some persons are re-renting out the shops at exorbitant prices,” the governor’s aide said.

He however, appealed to the petitioners to give peace a chance by allowing the decision of the council authorities to stand and all parties to maintain the peace, warning that the state government would deal decisively with anyone causing trouble at the market.

In his remarks, the Sapele Council Chairman, Eugene Inoaghan said that the market was handed over to the council by the state government, stressing that he was surprised when he discovered that the stores were not being put into proper use because the traders could not afford the cost.

He said that “when the market was built, Gov. Okowa did say that it was built for the masses and not for somebody to procure the shops to resell at higher rates.

“But, I am surprised that some persons are taking laws into their hands and are doing the wrong thing contrary to what the governor directed.”