Enugu State Government demolished shops in Old-Park Market

The Enugu State government has recently demolished shops at the Old – Park market without first relocating the traders and any temporal or permanent site. It's just amazing how some of our governors act as if they have never been poor!!!

This is how Vanguard reports it : ENUGU — DESPITE a subsisting order of an Enugu State High Court, restraining Enugu State Government from demolishing stalls at the Old Park Market in Enugu metropolis without first relocating the 890 affected traders, the state government has pulled down stalls in the market.

Apart from the statutory shop owners in the market, no fewer than 2,000 other traders doing business in the market are to be displaced as the state government had served a fresh eviction notice to enable it demolish the entire structures in the market with effect from today.

In the first phase of the demolition exercise carried out under the supervision of Enugu Capital Territory Development Authority, ECTDA, about 66 stalls were

brought down, while the remaining 824 were marked for demolition.

Government had last year indicated interest to relocate the traders in the market to enable it erect a shopping mall in the place and asked the affected traders to move to the new market on Aria Road.

The suit

However, when government began to issue quit notices to the affected traders, the traders proceeded to court on the ground that the so-called alternative allocation was not real.

In the suit on their behalf by Ifeanyichukwu Eneh against the state government and Enugu Capital Territory, the traders had sought the protection of their property rights.

The court had, in both interim and interlocutory orders, restrained the state government from demolishing the stalls without providing alternative place to the affected traders.

Some of the affected traders, who spoke on the development, yesterday, said they were shocked to arrive their shop on Friday to discover a notice from the state government, urging them to “park out without an alternative place,” even when there was a subsisting court order barring government from demolishing the stalls.