The Timber Street Mini Market Union by Lumumber Street, Mile II, Diobu Port Harcourt has promised to partner with the Rivers State Waste Management Agency (RIWAMA) in its effort to restore the state to her Garden City status.
The chairman of the union, Alhaji Kadiri Usman stated this over the weekend in Port Harcourt in a chat with newsmen.
Reacting to report that some of his members who displayed their goods and were actually trading during last month’s sanitation exercise as captured by the monitoring team, the chairman said the union will be serious in enforcing the exercise now and that anybody caught flouting the restriction order in the future would be handed over to the police for prosecution henceforth.
The chairman however disclosed that the traders normally participate in the weekly clean up of the market (Thursdays and Saturdays) and as well maintain the laws of the Port Harcourt Local Government Area Council.
According to him, “the only challenges we have in this market is the lack of cooperation from the nearby Azikiwe/Iloabuchi Police Post when distress calls are placed to them and used the opportunity to appeal for the security operatives cooperation.
Alhaji Usman also stated that the area boys are another torn in the traders’ flesh as the criminals come regularly to force the traders at gun point to rob them of their daily sales with impunity while the security operatives look the other way when called upon to help.
The union chairman used the opportunity to congratulate the state Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike over his electoral victory at the Supreme Court which he noted had put paid to all the litigations against the governor’s divine victory at the polls.
The traders appealed to the governor to remember his electoral promises to them and assist them with soft loans to boost and expand their stocks as well as the extension of an empowerment programme for them, adding that as supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the area, they had mobilized support and indeed voted for the electoral victory of Hon. Chinyere Igwe and Hon. Victor Ihunwo, the Port Harcourt Mayor.
