… As Second Rainbow Bus Stop turns to market
•We pay N5,000 rent to area boys – Traders

By Job Osazuwa

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The noise emanating from man and machine dominates the environment. Everyone struggles for the right of way. Every now and then, commuters alight from vehicles and scatter in different directions. It is a spectacle of confusion.
Traders, mini-bus drivers, tricycle and motorcycle riders simultaneously engage in a seeming war of wooing customers and passengers. They all try to outdo one another in the unhealthy contest. Drivers of trailers, tankers and other articulated vehicles honk their horns, raising the noise to the highest decibel.
At the Second Rainbow Bus Stop on the Oshodi-Apapa Expressway, Lagos, traders dealing in assorted wares have audaciously taken over a large portion of the road. The recklessness is displayed with sheer impunity. They lay out their goods on the stretch of the median separating the expressway from the service lane.
Right now, the bus stop is a daily market, especially in the evening. On your way from Oshodi towards Mile 2, you see the sellers’ firm grip on the bus stop. Even the enlightened ones seem unperturbed by the attendant risks associated with doing business in such a place. They openly endanger their lives and those of commuters and motorists struggling to pass through them regularly. Heavy-duty vehicles pass in front and behind the carefree merchants.  Second Rainbow is a busy bus stop. Hardly would a commercial bus pass the bus stop without dropping or picking passengers.
It is the major entrance that connects the Festac Town and Festac Extension from the Oshodi-Apapa Expressway. In this improvised market, anything you could think of is on sale. The goods include unisex shoes and clothes (new and old), foodstuff, fruits, bread, groundnuts, jewelry, electrical appliances, cooked food, roasted yam/plantain, popcorn and many more.
You would be dead wrong to think that this illegal trading only takes place in the evenings. As early as 1pm, some of the traders usually start assembling their wares for prospective buyers.
Investigations by the reporter revealed that anyone seeking a space at Second Rainbow market would pay as much as N10,000 to the street urchins who claim ownership of the area, including the road. One of the traders told the reporter that the payment is made according to the number of slabs the trader intends to occupy on the median.
According to him: “If you want to start selling anything here, you will go and negotiate with those area boys who are in charge. Depending on who introduces you to them, they may collect between N5,000 and N7, 000 per slab. But it is usually N10,000 for two slabs. Most importantly, it all depends on your ability to negotiate.
“You only pay the money once for as long as you remain here. They call it rent. After that, you will be paying N100 every day. But you don’t pay on the days you don’t come to sell. If you refuse to pay them, the boys can seize or destroy your goods. We simply pay the daily N100 to avoid their problems. When they are angry, they can destroy goods worth N1,000. When you ask them what the money is meant for, they will say that they use it to secure our goods. But I know it’s a lie.”
Mrs. Obiageli Akpan, who sells fruits at the bus stop, said she was a legal occupant of her allotted space.
“I pay N100 every day to the government purse; that is N3,000 a month. I have not committed any offence. The people in government are supposed to be thanking us because we pay money to them. I have spent close to two years here. I don’t sell illegal or contraband goods, so l am not scared of anything or anybody.”
Chinedu Obi, who deals in fairly used shoes, said he could be lucky at times to make huge sales even as he experienced poor sales occasionally: “This place is a major bus stop; that is why the traders are many here. Most of our customers are too tired after the day’s work to start going to markets or shopping centres. When they see what they are looking for here, they stop and quickly buy, thereby saving time and energy. I make up to N10,000 a day here, especially Fridays.”
A company bus driver, Mr. Obi Okonkwo, lamented to the reporter that whenever he had to refill his vehicle’s tank at the NNPC filling station by the bus stop, he would waste quality time manoeuvring in-between the traders and their wares. He said he was usually forced to yell at them to clear the road for him to gain access to the station, adding that on some days, he would be forced to face oncoming traffic to enter the filling station.
“The traders believe they are the rightful owners of the road. At times, they ignore your horn and continue their sales. They can even take over the entire service lane. It is not a place to drive through when the market is at its peak. People that are not familiar with the place might even conclude that it is a typical market due to how busy it is,” Okonkwo said.
Two of the guards attached to the NNPC filling station were seen working arduously to clear the motorcycles and tricycles from completely obstructing customers driving in and out of the facility. The two employees had the motorcycles, tricycles and mini-buses to battle with when the reporter visited the place on Monday evening.
In the middle of 2016, Lagos State governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, directed law enforcement agencies to commence total enforcement of the edict against street trading and hawking, saying that the law prohibiting their activities would take its full course from July 1, 2016. It was the reawakening of the Lagos State Street Trading and Illegal Market Prohibition Law, 2003, which forbids street trading and hawking across the metropolis.
Unfortunately, years after, the law seems to be waxing cold, as indiscriminate trading and hawking stare residents in the face. Despite the fact that the Lagos State Task Force on Environment and Special Offences vowed to arrest any defiant trader and hawker, the act continues unabated.
A teacher with a private secondary school in Lagos, Mr. Orimogunje Olaleye, called on those saddled with the responsibility of implementing the law to wake up from their slumber and swing into action so that sanity could be restored to the mega city. He charged them to deal with defaulters without fear or favour.
He described the Second Rainbow situation as an unbelievable eyesore. According to him, failure on the side of government to hold people accountable for their actions creates room for lawlessness.
“I foresee the Second Rainbow case expanding to become a full-blown market if nobody does anything about it. You cannot entirely blame the traders; we know that Nigerians have that survival instinct in them. So, they want to always display it at the slightest opportunity. It is sad that some hoodlums would go to a government road to collect all manner of levies,” Orimogunje said.