In the month of June 2024, agents of the government of Enugu state, amidst wailings of anguish and despair of traumatized citizens, supervised the simultaneous demolitions of markets and built-up places in many parts of Enugu state. With regards to immediate impacts on the overall well-being of the directly affected persons, their dependents, and their sources of income and sustenance, the devastation was clearly reminiscent of the horrors of the 1966 to 1970 Nigerian civil war and its immediate aftermath.
Vast settlements at Okpara Avenue, containing iconic buildings, banks, schools, SMEs, an orphanage run by the Red Cross, transport terminals, etc., were all crushed in a destructive rage that was fuelled by motives that are still unfolding.
These destructions were executed in other centers of commerce and human habitation in Enugu metropolis, including; Gariki, Abakpa, and then Ogige market in Nsukka Local Government Area.
The devastations, the horrors of which are beyond normal human contemplation were executed with little or no notice. They attracted widespread condemnation. and even outright demonstrations and marches by aggrieved people in parts of the state.
The Enugu state government countered the points raised against its action with ready-made rebuttals and defences, lamely arguing that destruction must necessarily precede development; that the state government acted to restore the state’s masterplan; that compensations have been paid to the affected persons; that modern bus terminals will serve better and, in the case of Ogige market in Nsukka, when the outcry became quite loud and ominous, that the state government had provided an alternative location for the displaced traders.
Attention had been focused substantially on the devastation wrecked by agents of the state government at the establishments adjacent Okpara Avenue in Enugu state. It was the subject of a viral BBC video broadcast. The matter was also the subject of a Motion brought before the House of Representatives; the state Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Barr. Ugo Agballah also addressed a world press conference where he stated that “Land Grab” was the main driver of the destruction that occurred.
These destructions, directed by the Enugu State Government on a vast and unprecedented scale as I pointed out earlier were executed also at Gariki, in Enugu South LGA, Abakpa in Enugu East LGA, and at Ogige-Nsukka market in Nsukka LGA. Ogige-Nsukka market is equally a huge market but stands apart from the other three major centers of trade and commerce that were destroyed by agents of Enugu state government.
Ogige-Nsukka market is at once an emporium, a cultural center, and a daily market that serves both the interest of the locals of the immediate Nsukka environment and other buyers and sellers from Kogi, Benue, and other parts of Northern Nigeria. The Ogige-Nsukka market predates by decades the independence of Nigeria and has grown and spurned other satellite markets. Ogige-Nsukka market is the 2nd biggest market in Enugu state and like Onitsha Market, is both host and destination of choice for buyers and sellers from its immediate constituency, particularly but not limited to students of the UNN and people from other parts of Nigeria and beyond.
It is through happenings after the unfortunate demolition of that market that the contradictions and conflations in the statements and actions of the Enugu state government are painfully and disgracefully unfolding with rapidity.
The Enugu state government claimed that it had resettled the traders of the Ogige Nsukka market. The falsehood in this statement is laid bare by the presence, every day, of hundreds of traders whose shops were destroyed as they mill around the grounds of the destroyed market, daily, hawking goods that a few weeks ago they dispensed from their own shops securely and with dignity. If really the state government allocated shops to them, why would they prefer to mill around the destroyed market, in the circumstances of utter degradation and humiliation?
Second, Matters have now been complicated further by pictures that are available worldwide of the deployment on the grounds of the demolished Ogige-Nsukka market of giant-sized fuel tanks and several pipes and other related facilities hinting at a sinister possibility that part of the reason for the utter and near complete destruction of a communal market and therefore public facility is to make way for a petrol filling station. So, the question in the heart of many who wait patiently for an answer is this: “Were more than 1000 shops serving the direct and indirect interest of more than 100,000 persons destroyed to make way for a petrol filling station?
Third, in destroying the National headquarters of both Ifesinachi Transport Ltd and Peace Mass Transit, the state government claimed that it acted to restore the masterplan of the Ogige-Nsukka market. This claim seriously discredits the state government in the eyes of most adults in the Nsukka area because everyone knows that in destroying the plazas belonging to Ifesinachi Transport Ltd and Peace Mass Transit, the state government is by so doing, laying claims to the very grounds that accommodated Premier Hotel Nsukka, which was adjacent but substantially separated from the motor park that has now been destroyed to make way for the construction of what the state government claims to be a terminal; some sort of a glorified Motor park, you daresay.
Premier Hotel indeed existed adjacent to the motor park which the state government has taken over after destroying everything standing there but it is not possible at all that the state government has any basis to lay claims to the grounds of Premier Hotel Nsukka which was built by the late Chief Charles Abangwu immediately after the Nigerian Civil war. Chief Charles Abangwu, a1954 graduate of Law of the University of Hull and a contemporary of Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and who was elected into the Regional House of Assembly to represent Nsukka Division from April 1955 to February 1962, could not have built Premier Hotels Ltd on grounds meant for Ogige-Nsukka market.
In the year 2000 or thereabout Chief Charles Abangwu on the point of retiring to his country home sold the Premier Hotel premises to two reputable businessmen of Nsukka extraction: Igwe James Mamah, proprietor and founder of Ifesinachi Motors, and Chief Sam Onyishi, proprietor of Peace Mass Transit.
Enugu state government destroyed the vast establishments of those two businessmen without notice, without prior discussion, without compensation, without providing alternative places, and in the case of Ifesinachi Transport Ltd, despite a subsisting injunction of an Enugu State High Court.
Also treated with the same disdain and contempt are the displaced traders of Ogige market, Nsukka. Notwithstanding the claims by agents of the Enugu state government, I insist that no alternate arrangement was made for the traders before they were violently dislodged and displaced; I also insist that contrary to the statements credited to the government to the contrary, most, if not all the traders have not received a dime from the state government as compensation for the losses that have been inflicted upon them. In forcefully evicting and taking over the properties of the people, the procedure and legal steps envisioned for the takeover of people’s property by the Land Use Act were flagrantly disobeyed.
Up till now, no visible action has been taken to ameliorate the hardship that the actions of the state government have visited on the traders and their dependents, even as significant fatalities are being recorded every day among the victims of Ogige-Nsukka market demolition as must be the case with other traders and other business persons and their dependents whose sources of livelihood were destroyed in Abapka, Gariki, and Okpara Avenue.
My stand on the matter is this:
1. Enugu state governor, Mr. Peter Mbah should admit that his clearly unconstitutional actions have occasioned monumental harm on several households, possibly outstripping whatever benefits that may possibly accrue from the transport terminals, the purported purpose of which he has wrecked the unfolding tragedy on the means of livelihood of persons in Enugu state. In these times of unprecedented economic stress, the Governor should take immediate remedial actions as the occasion warrants.
2. The first step is for relief markets to be expeditiously provided at strategic points in parts of the state for the immediate use of the displaced traders.
3. Similarly, persons and institutions like Ifesinachi Transport Ltd, Peace Mass Transit, and others whose establishments were destroyed in evident error should be restituted.
4. It is important for just and reasonable compensations to be paid to those whose shops, chattels, and other valuables were destroyed.
5. Mr. Peter Mbah should make a public broadcast to the people of Enugu State asking for forgiveness and appeal for healing for the pains caused by his peremptory and excessive use of the power of the office of the governor of Enugu State.
Being text of an address delivered by Chijioke Edeogs, Enugu State Governorship Candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 Elections, at a press briefing held at the Labour Parry National.Secretariat, Abuja
