All unauthorized cow vendors and street vendors on the road setbacks along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway have been ordered by Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State to leave the region within the next twenty-one days.
The expressway’s Kara-Isheri Warewa axis is where the illicit merchants are located.
Abiodun stated that all of the traders’ shanties would be destroyed in order to properly clean up the axis if they did not leave after the 21-day deadline.
The governor said the shanties erected by the traders constitute an environmental nuisance and a security risk to members of the public.
He said the shanties also serve as criminal hideouts for street urchins and drug peddlers, “who rob innocent citizens of their valuables in broad daylight”.
The clean-up, Abiodun disclosed, is in preparation for the beautification of the setbacks to complement the reconstruction of the expressway by the Federal Government.
Abiodun gave the directive in a message delivered on his behalf by the Commissioner for Environment, Ola Oresanya, during a meeting with community leaders at the palace of the Olofin of Isheri, Oba Sulaiman Adekunle Bamgbade in Isheri.
The governor, according to a statement on Sunday, said the decision to dislodge the street traders and demolish all their shanties was to restore environmental sanity after several warnings, abatement notices and other entreaties for them to move to government approved markets failed.
The release by the Press Officer, Ministry of Environment, Rotimi Odunniyi, stated that Abiodun expressed concerns over the continuous stay of the animal sellers and other traders in the “filthy shanties” which he said they have converted to their homes.
The governor noted that the traders now practise open defecation in the illegal market, adding that the development can lead to outbreak of communicable diseases like cholera in adjoining communities.
“So, my government will not wait and allow a small group of individuals in the name of trading outside approved markets put the safety and health of our decent people at risk,” Abiodun emphasised.
Responding, Oba Bamgbola pledged the commitment of the residents to the government’s efforts in ridding the axis of the menace of street traders.
The monarch admitted that the shanties are not only posing environmental challenges, but are being used by criminals to attack innocent residents and other unsuspecting members of the public.
