Traders at Daleko market in Mushin, Lagos trooped to the Lagos State House of Assembly on Friday to protest the planned demolition of their shops in the market.
The traders, who were in their numbers, carried placards with inscriptions, urging the speaker of the house to come to their rescue.
They accused the Mushin Local Government Council of conniving with a developer to demolish the market and re-allocate the shops to unknown persons.
One of the traders, Mr Segun Okunola, said the protest was to appeal to the house to stop the demolition of the market.
Okunola said the two weeks given to the traders to vacate the market was unfair, arguing that the council had not informed traders of their fate after the reconstruction of the market.
He told the assembly that the traders had been selling at the market since the past 30 years.
Okunola said they got information that the market would be demolished on Feb.28, pleading with the speaker to use his office to stop the demolition.
Okunola said that the assembly was the last hope of the traders.
Another trader, Alhaji Dauda Umoru, said he had been trading in the market in the past 27 years and had nowhere to go if the market was demolished.
A spokesman for the traders, Mr Adebayo Egunjobi, said however, that the traders were not opposed to rebuilding the market to an ultra-modern shopping complex.
He said that the house should ensure that the traders got a shop each when the new shopping complex was completed.
Egunjobi said the traders should be relocated to another area, instead of being asked to vacate the market within two weeks since they were not illegal occupants.
He said that they paid rents regularly to the council until the eviction letter came.
The spokesman noted that the traders believed in peaceful protest, saying that was why they came to the house to express their grievances.
Responding, Hon. Olayiwola Olawale, representing Mushin 11 Constituency, accompanied by three other members of the house, assured the traders that their grievances would be looked into.
Olawale commended the traders for their peaceful protest, promising that they would meet with the executive secretary of the council to get details of the planned demolition. (NAN)
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