By Christopher Oji

The Alaba International Market in Ojo Local Government Area of Lagos State has been shut down, following a bloody clash between the traders and motor park touts, yesterday.

One person was feared killed and many injured, while windscreens of some vehicles were smashed by the rampaging touts, popularly known as Agberos. At the time of filing this report, soldiers and the police had taken over the scene, while the market remained closed.

A trader, who simply identified himself as Chukwura, told Daily Sun that one person lost his life, while many people were injured by the touts, who were armed with guns, machetes, daggers, charms and other cudgels. But for the quick intervention of security agencies, the casualty figure would have been more devastating, as the touts attempt to raze the market. Some of the hoodlums were shouting that we should go back to the East and leave their state alone. They were calling us all sorts of names, such as: Obidiots, Biafra, IPOB etc.”

Trouble was said to have started on Tuesday, when the market task force gathered their members and chased away the touts who they warned not to come to the market. It was gathered that, in the early hours of yesterday, the touts, who re-grouped with their colleagues from other motor parks, stormed the market to reclaim their stands, but were resisted by the market’s task force.

A trader, Josy Nwanko, while narrating the incident, said: “We are traders, and we keep our environment clean. We do environmental sanitation every Thursday, and that is why we don’t attend to customers till after 10am on the day set outside for the cleaning exercise. But we noticed that the agberos keep littering the roads.

“We have public toilets which we pay for when we are pressed. But the touts would defecate and urinate anywhere, and the local government workers would blame the traders for the mess caused by the agberos. So, we decided that they should leave the market for us.

Related News

“We had a series of meetings with the leadership of the motor park, but they refused to change, hence, we decided that enough was enough, and they must leave us. We chased them away because it was because of the market that they constructed the motor park. This morning, they stormed the market with dangerous weapons, shouting that we should leave our states and leave Lagos for them. Well, this time around, we told them that they don’t have an exclusive reserve for madness, so we resisted fire for fire.

“The local government knows that we are organised, but rather than blame the touts, the management is blaming traders for the offence of the touts. We are calling on the state government to wade into the issue and educate the Ojo local government councils on what to do.

“On our part, we are organised and we have a task force that goes around to implement discipline; but the touts don’t have, yet, they won’t adhere to simple instructions of cleanliness and orderliness. All they know is to collect money from drivers, but can’t invest part of it in keeping their environment clean and safe. That is the problem.”

A police officer from Ojo Division told Daily Sun that the Divisional Police Officer was forced to call for reinforcement from other police formations and sister agencies, especially the army, before the crisis would degenerate to a tribal war.

“We are on ground because Alaba International Market is very crucial, and anything that happens to it will affect millions of people. I won’t be able to tell you whether we arrested anybody or not, because we are now concerned with saving the situation, which is what we are still doing.”

As of the time of this report, the market had been shut down with normalcy gradually returning to the scene. The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), SP Benjamin Hundeyin, who confirmed the situation, said the police and other sister agencies were on ground keeping vigil.