Chief Bode George To Sanwo-Olu: Lagos Traders Are Not Terrorists

Open letter by PDP leader, Chief Olabode George, to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State on the plight of traders in the hands of state officials and security agents

Your Excellency, I bring to your notice the plight of many traders in Lagos State.Lagos is known as the Centre of Excellence but these traders are not being treated ‘Excellently’ by some security agents and government officials on a daily basis.

Apart from lamenting the multiple levies they pay to councils and at the same time subjected to extortion in a most horrendous manner by some thugs and rough-necks, they are also harassed and flogged like criminals.

I was born in Lagos and I grew up here. I know street trading has been part of our culture and tradition for decades, even before Independence on October 1, 1960. Many professionals today like lawyers, doctors, engineers, accountants and others were financed educationally by what their parents made through street trading.

In London, New York and other advanced cities, there is street trading. What authorities in those climes do is to regulate street trading, not to subject traders to despicable treatment.In Lagos, some of these traders and hawkers, due to the harsh and hostile economy in the land, stay on the roadside where they pay government officials daily. This is because some shops inside markets go for as high as N1 million and more. Where are they going to get such amount from in this type of economy?

In the 21st Century, it is an act of wickedness for government officials to be treating street traders like bandits and terrorists in Lagos State.Where is our dignity? Why should officials subject them to harrowing experience on a daily basis?They are not armed robbers and they should not be treated as such. It is despicable to treat street traders like terrorists. They are just trying to survive and Lagos is not the only place where we have street traders.

What your administration needs to do is to regulate their activities. You can also set up skill acquisition programmes for some of them so that they don’t become idle.

Remember that an idle hand is the devil’s workshop. After daily payment, they will be hounded into vans and trucks, their wares confiscated and they will be locked up.What a triple tragedy.

Locking them up is not the solution to street trading. Some of these traders have children in tertiary institutions today and it is what they make they use to take care of educational needs of those who depend on them.Mr. Governor, we all know what led to Arab Spring in North Africa years ago. That should not be allowed to happen here at all.

We should not deceive ourselves that the Nigerian Spring cannot happen here because people are hungry and angry. I appeal to you to revisit the issue of street traders before it gets out of hand. The essence of governance is to alleviate the suffering of the masses. Imagine the government announcing that its Environmental Sanitation Corps arrested no fewer than 63 people for allegedly crossing the highway and engaging in illegal street trading. Offenders of highway rule can be reprimanded to discourage others from committing the same offence. But, street traders are respectable members of the society who strive every day for their living, irrespective of the difficult times they are facing. It is wrong for them to be treated with unimaginable disdain while loafers and urchins are left roaming the streets and our neighbourhoods.

In England and Wales, you may need to get a licence for street trading. Restrictions, fines and penalties are imposed for breaches of the laws and regulations in a dignifying way. For example, applicants for street trading licence are required to contact the council to find out if they need a licence to trade.

You might not need a street trading licence if you have already have a certificate. You may be required to contact the council to find out and the area you want to trade. You will have to tell the officials where, when and what you want to trade. You will also be required to provide evidence for identification and a certain fee for the council service.

The council can turn down your application for licence, or give you few days for investigation. The applicant can also be placed on a waiting list. If any trader breaches the stipulated laws of the council or conditions laid down for obtaining the licence, the licence can be suspended or withdrawn, or the trader can be fined.

But in the case of our country, particularly in Lagos, officials of the Lagos State Environmental Sanitation Corps (LAGESC) and the Central Business District (CBD) throw caution to the wind to abuse their privileges, taking presumed street traders hostage, physically forcing them into their black maria vehicles to the bewilderment of members of the public.

Imagine putting a human being, whose sin is trading on the street inside a black maria truck, in this 21th century, a vehicle reserved for hardened criminals.I have been inundated with the abuses by state officials against their fellow citizens, who are harmless traders on Lagos streets, like Broad Street, Nnamdi Azikiwe Street, Martins Street, Marina, Oyingbo, Yaba, Ketu, Ojota, Oshodi, Ikeja, Mike 2, Mile 12, Ajegunle, among others.

I’m saddened that these vulnerable Nigerians, who the government claimed gave their mandate for the office they are occupying can be treated like slaves.This inhuman attitude must be halted forthwith and a more civil approach to treating fellow human beings be embraced for posterity. It is time for us to join the rest of the world in civility!

Chief Olabode George (CON)

The Atona Oodua of Yorubaland.