Owners to retain shops after remodeling of Ariaria, Ekeoha markets in Aba

Governor Alex Otti, governor of Abia State, has assured shop owners at the A-line section of the Ariaria International Market and Ekeoha Market of retaining their shops after the completion of the ongoing remodeling.

Otti gave the assurance when he received a delegation of the National Association of Nigeria Traders (NANTs) in his office. According to the governor, every shop owner should be given the right of first refusal before reallocating the shops to other people.

He warned that whoever was not entitled to a shop and went ahead to buy the remodeled shops would lose his/her money, adding that he had given the contractor clear instruction to consider the original owners of the remodeled shops first.

“We inherited that reconstruction of the A-line. But I have given clear instructions that those who own shops must have first right of refusal.

“If you own a shop, if you don’t get it, it is because you don’t want it. So, those fears are no longer tenable. I heard that this was what happened before we came, but we have since changed it. We have communicated to the traders to say, if you have evidence that you owned a shop, bring them.

“Allocation will happen only after the owners of the shops originally have been given shops. That is the instruction,” the governor assured.

He also directed his technical assistant to work with the Commissioner for Trade and Special Adviser on Trade to ensure that his instructions are fully carried out.

Speaking further, Governor Otti said that although it is not the responsibility of the government to determine the price of those shops, he has designed means for the original owners, who may not afford the price of the remodeled shops to get loans from banks to augment the amount in order to get their shops back.

“In the unlikely event there are people who don’t have money to pay for the shop, we will arrange a bank loan for them. I have already spoken to two banks. It is not for me to determine how much the shop would be but I heard it is about N10 million.

Assuming it is n10 million and you have only N5 million, the bank will provide N5 million and hold on to the title document until you pay back the bank and collect your title document. So far as I am here, that’s what will happen”, Governor Otti assured.

He said that the same thing is applicable to Ekeoha Shopping Center being remodeled in phases and any other market to be remodeled, stating that everybody should be treated fairly and equally.

On the issue of payments of N18,000 yearly levies in the market, Governor Otti said that what the government did was to change the system so that all payments would go straight to the bank account of Abia State Government. He explained that anyone not getting alert after payment, the fault may be from the bank. He assured that something would be done to address system failure.