Fashola Re-Opens Ladipo Market

The Lagos State Government on Monday re-opened the Ladipo Auto Spare Parts Market in Mushin area of Lagos, Southwest Nigeria after two weeks of closure on 25 February as a result of filth at the market and environmental degradation.

Officials of the Lagos State Government and leadership of the market met on Monday and signed an agreement that the market must be kept clean always and that no street trading would be allowed on the streets.

The Commissioner for the Environment, Tunji Bello had said that some of the conditions that might warrant re-opening of the market include: complete removal of all illegal structures and attached structures built along canal paths and that traders must be confined to the main markets.

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“Under no condition must they trade or solicit for customers on the main road, they must remove all shop attachments built round the market/canals, remove all derelict and abandoned vehicles parked within the market as far as the expressway, remediate all forms of degradation on the roads and market area, sort out waste management issues with LAWMA as they cannot continue to dump into the canals, ensure total cleaning of the entire market and adjoining streets which they have degraded, among others,” he said.

Mr Bello had lamented the poor state of the market, saying that “ the environment is seriously polluted and degraded with oil; full and half engines spare parts and human waste are dumped into canals, while illegal structures were built along drainage paths and all the canal setbacks have been turned to shops and trading points.

“A visit to the place also shows that street traders have taken over the entire major inlets and outlets at the market, while residents have severally petitioned the Ministry of the environment about lack of access to their homes and property. These traders have degraded all the major access roads to the market which need remediation rehabilitation.”

Before the re-opening of the market, intensive sanitation had been done by the marketers, while shanties built on drainage channels were demolished.

Last week, Governor Babatunde Fashola visited the market with his counterpart from Imo State, Rochas Okorocha and decried the horrible environmental state of the market and gave conditions for its re-opening.

He described the state of the market and its environs as “massive degradation of a section of Lagos,” saying that the good thing in the visit was that the traders had seen the lack of caution in their deed and were ready to make amends.

“It is a massive degradation of a section of Lagos and this is not acceptable. People should not carry on like this. But what is, perhaps, worthy of note is that those who are involved have seen the error of what they have done here and are ready to work with us to clean-up and I have said here that they must take the lead.

“The canal there poses a lot of danger and we are expecting heavy rains. I don’t want to come back here to pick any dead body. We built the canal and we must make it work by not trading on it and not dumping refuse in it.

“People told me that they picked engine parts, spare parts and other things from the canal. It must stop,” the Governor said, adding that there is now an agreement between the traders and the Government to work together to clean up the place and continue with the business there,” he said.

According to Governor Fashola, “if you must trade here, you must stay behind the property line. You can see the damage you have caused to the road. We have to come back to re-do the road. Now this will be done with taxpayers’ money. It is fine that you want to do business but those who pay the money used to construct the road must also be able to use it and how do they do that if you take over the road?”