Enugu Govt Gives 14 Days Eviction Notice To Eke-Obinagu Market Traders

The Enugu Capital Territory Development Authority (ECTDA) has ordered all bystanders, hawkers, highway traders and petroleum tankers at Eke Obinagu, along Enugu-Abakaliki-Cameroon highway to vacate all sides of the Trans-African highway within 14 days or face its wrath of demolition and prosecution.

The Eke-Obinagu road market has in the recent time brought about perennial traffic congestion, made worse with the menace of petroleum tankers and which in several cases resulted in road crashes, including the recent death of the Ebonyi state commissioner for Infrastructure, Engr. Fidelis Nweze.

Chairman of ECTDA, Denge Josef Onoh said that Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State, after so much effort at controlling traffic at the Eke-Obinagu/ NNPC axis ordered the ECTDA to ensure that the market traders relocate to their designated and developed market adjacent to the NNPC depot which he said they left unoccupied but came out to the road.

He lamented that Governor Ugwuanyi as a sitting governor had on occasions personally come down and decongested traffic at the menaced Eke-Obinagu/NNPC junction which he said was embarrassing, yet the illegal road occupiers failed to reciprocate his concern in the area.

Onoh further disclosed that his agency has made arrangements for relocation of all NNPC depot tankers and auto mechanics who have occupied the two sides of the Trans-African highway so as to ease traffic and save lives in the congested area.

Onoh stated that in line with the agency’s development control mandate, he, in the company of the traditional ruler, the Surveyor-General of the state, House of Assemblymember Hon Hillary Ugwu; Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Transport, Ogbonna Idike and Governor Ugwuanyi’s aides visited Eke-Obinagu, Emene and Abakpa crowded areas where they resented to the impunity violations of city development control in the guise of trading along major streets in the areas.

He extended his eviction notice to the remnant traders at the former Oye-Emene market and every street trader along Amuri road, Taxaco and liberty bus stops and all other hawkers along Nike road in Abakpa area of the metropolis.

In the events of these, therefore, the Enugu Capital Territory Development Authority hereby gives all illegal markets and shanties that have dominated the Eke-Obinagu/NNPC way 14 days from now to relocate as demolition of the 216 illegal structures, makeshift markets and shanties that have defaced that entire environment and have increased robbery, drug abuse, making it difficult for people with genuine business to move freely. After 14 days, the ECTDA will commence immediate and total demolition of that entire area,” Onoh said.

He stated that any form of disobedience or resistance will be met with superior force and urged the illegal occupiers of the affected places to comply with the directive.

On the nuisance at Abakpa, the ECTDA boss said that further demolition will affect all structures built along transmission lines; illegal markets and motor parks built in the area have turned Abakpa from a well-planned city into a slum.