Wike Frowns At Arbitrary Protests By Traders

By: Wisdom Acka

FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, has warned traders against embarking on protests arbitrarily.

Wike gave this warning while addressing traders, who came from the Apo Mechanic village and blocked entrance to the FCTA Secretariat, demanding signing of a Lease Agreement by the Minister to enable them relocate to their Permanent Site at Wassa District, Abuja.

The Minister said that such arbitrary acts would be viewed as attempts at intimidating the government.

Obviously unimpressed by actions of the traders, the Minister berated them for not writing his office to discuss the delay in implementation of the Lease Agreement and for not informing him of the protest.

The Minister told the protesters that he considered the protest as sponsored action, since there was no basis for it.

His words: “If this is the way you support government, then I don’t need it. Is this the way you support government by barricading the road and obstruction of traffic without informing me of anything?”

“You never wrote to me that you want to see me or that we refuse to see you; then what you will do is to wake up in the morning, and barricade the road and barricade the gate and then you are saying you are supporting me? Then I don’t need your support,” he reiterated.

“What I don’t like is intimidation. If you have a problem, channel your problem to me and if I don’t solve it, then you can take another step,” the Minister added.

Wike recalled: “Something that has happened since 2015 and you didn’t take any step. Ministers have come and gone, and then I just came and I haven’t received any letter from you till today, saying there is a problem we are having and we think you can help us to solve the problem.”

“Then all of a sudden, you are coming to say the good things am doing. What good things? Then you don’t need the good things,” the Minister wondered.

Asking the protesting traders to follow due process forward, Wike said: “What you should do, tell your people to go, then write that you want to see me, then we will sit down and talk. I am not one of those ones anyone will come and intimidate”.

“Barricading the road, I don’t like it. People coming to tannish the image of government is not right when we can sit and dialogue. If government has promised to give you land then I will look at the papers,” he restated.

The protesting Apo Mechanic traders were displaying placards with messages commending the developmental strides of the Minister, and appealing to him to implement an agreement made since 2015.

Chairman of the Traders Association, Chimezie Ife, stated that his members were tired of waiting since 2006 to be allocated their permanent business environment, having spent over N100 million.

Ife had told the Minister that the old Apo mechanic village was demolished since 2006 with a promise for a permanent location, but they waited till 2011 when they applied for a land, spending over N100 million along the way.

The Chairman lamented that despite the efforts and expenses, they were yet to be allocated any land, prompting series of demonstrations with the hope that the current FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, would address the matter.