Oyo Govt Officially Hands Over Newly Constructed 700 Shops To Beneficiaries

Oyo state government has stated that allocation of 700 shops free of charge to traders in Ibadan will keep them off the roadside and meet the ongoing strategic market development and organization plan in the state.

This was as the Commissioner for Trade, Otunba Ademola Ojo officially allocated the shops to the beneficiaries on behalf of the state government today and urged them to ensure adequate maintenance of the facility in line with environmental laws and guidelines.

The Commissioner for Trade, Investment, Industry and Cooperative, Otunba Ademola Ojo, reaffirmed the commitment of the Seyi Makinde led administration to improving the quality of life and standard of living of the people through provision of strong economic support system that is sustainable.

Otunba Ojo noted that efforts to permanently relocate the traders in the past have not yielded the desired end results but maintained that the Seyi Makinde led government has gone a step further to ensure that the new gesture is free of any charges so that traders would have no excuse to violate directives to stay off the roadside with their trades.

He added that Governor Makinde had taken it personally upon himself to go round the city to know market areas with densely populated roadside traders in order to properly plan ahead for them which is now evident in the 700 shops allocated to beneficiaries at zero cost.

“In the recent past, there have efforts to relocate traders on the road, traders hiding under the excuse of not having available shops to rent for their trading and that they don’t have enough money to rent shops because of the economic situation.

“So, because of Governor Makinde’s magnanimity, you know the kind kind of person he is as a very concerned person about anything affecting the masses, we decided to go round himself and found out that there are a lot of them on the road.

“The governor then said, go and capture all of them and have their data, enrol them, we have to do something about them so, even before the construction of these shops, we have already gathered information of the traders on the road around this axis, we already have their names six months before now.

” So after completing the construction of this place, we even thought the governor was going to give it to them at a rebate but in his usual act of magnanimity said, we have to give them the shops free of charge.

“This is not even political, not about who or what party anybody supported or whether you’re Christian or Muslim, it’s about the good people of Oyo state and of Ibadan in particular, especially those roadside traders who needed to be relocated away from the road.” The commissioner said.

Otunba Ojo stated further that the class of roadside traders that are the beneficiaries of the 700 free shops are those operators in the micro economic level whose total cost of wares ranges between fifty thousand and hundred thousand at most.

Oyo market leaders, other top government functionaries, political bigwigs in the ruling party as well as traders association were all in attendance at the event.