Anambra Traders Launch N2.5m Road Maintenance, Refuse Evacuation Project

By Uzo Ugwunze

Traders at the Fruits and Vegetables International market, otherwise called Power Mike market, Ogbaru Local Government Area, Anambra State, have flagged off road maintenance project on the Power Mike/Seven Keys road that connects the market and waste evacuation.

Speaking to newsmen during the monthly sanitation exercise on Saturday, the chairman of the market, Chief Ngozi Egonu, disclosed that the project would cost a whopping sum of N2.5milion.

“We embark on this road maintenance project because our vehicles that carry the perishable goods that we deal in, normally fall on getting to the dilapidated portions of this road, and it’s the major road to our market. We pay a lot of money to get the fallen vehicles out. That is why we use this sanitation day to embark on the work.

“We appeal to state government to fulfill its promise of putting in place market facilities now that the rainy season has not set in and also to ensure that those traders still along the Onitsha/Asaba expressway are made to join the traders in the only Fruit and Vegetables market in the state,” he pleaded.

The Vice Chairman of the market, Mr. Emeka Ikokwu, also expressed satisfaction with the sanitation exercise adding that with their work on the Power Mike/Seven Keys road, falling of vehicles laden with goods will be a thing of the past.

“We have spent a lot of money on this road because of its poor state and finally resolved to earmark N2.5million to work on the bad portions that normally fall our vehicles. We also have other roads to the market like the GMO road but this one we are working on is the major road to our market.

“Apart from working on the dilapidated portions of the said road, we also evacuate refuse in the market with tippers so that our market will look clean.

Ikokwu thanked Governor Chukwuma Soludo for coming to their rescue by designation of the market to be the only International Fruit and Vegetables market so that traders who deal in such goods will stay in one place.

Alhaji Zuberu Umaru, Personal Assistant to the chairman, also described Governor Soludo as “Governor of Northern People in Anambra State”, pointing out that he loves traders in the state which informed his creation of enabling environment for them.

In his own contribution, the engineer employed by the traders to work on the dilapidated portions, Engr. Raymond O. Alecha, attributed cause of the damage portions of the road to weight of the articulated vehicles plying the road.

“We are going to ensure that such vehicles will not have any negative effect on the roads again with the type of materials we are going to use. There are up to seven portions of the road that are dilapidated,” he stated

In his own speech, Alhaji Suleiman Magaji, vice chairman of the market, said that, “We are helping the government by working on the road as everything will not be left for Government alone. Governor Soludo’ is trying and we want to support him. That is why we are using our own money to support him,” he stated.