Credit: Pictorial illustration/Facebook/Ofonime Honesty
By Abasifreke Effiong – Abuja
Last night I read a fantastic article titled “The ‘dead man’ who ‘rose’ again: The Uyo capital city street trading conundrum“, written by a journalist, Ofonime Honesty.
The article amplified public concerns on the perennial street trading around Ibom plaza in the heart of Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital.
The author captured in vivid imagery the drama that unfolded during the latest enforcement of the ban on street trading around the plaza by the Uyo Capital City Development Authority (UCCDA).
He encouraged UCCDA to continue enforcing the ban on street trading around the plaza, amplifying safety risks, health and environmental concerns.
Hear him, “so I say to UCCDA: do not stop. Do not be moved by the drama. Do not be swayed by crocodile tears. Do not be deceived by feigned death. Keep enforcing. Keep clearing. Keep restoring. Keep building. Keep planning. Keep doing your job. But, most importantly, let every action be within the ambit of the law.”
I desire as the author of the op-cited article does to see the government achieve full traffic-free, aesthetics, and hygiene restoration of the Ibom plaza. However, using the same methodology – forceful eviction of the traders – repeatedly has continually failed to achieve this objective.
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One of the reasons is that the Ibom plaza was conceived and built as a leisure and business interface, not exclusively a leisure spot. The business arm of the plaza are the open stalls facing the subway connecting Aka and Oron roads. There was no overflow to the streets from the business arm of the plaza until the government closed that area for maintenance some years ago. When the traders were pushed out, they moved into the surrounding spaces, then to the streets, till the volume of trade became overwhelming as it is today.
The government of H.E Obong Victor Attah, at the time of building the Ibom plaza may not have envisaged the volume of trading that the spot has witnessed years later. The administration that ordered the closure of the plaza for maintenance didn’t equally think of the latent impact of its action.
So what’s the way forward?
How can we address the current situation to save the lives of traders who have resisted repeated attempts by successive administrations to move them away from the streets around the plaza? How do we ensure the aesthetics and hygiene of the heart of the State capital is amicably maintained?
My suggestion is that, the Akwa Ibom state government should consider developing Ibom Plaza Extension. The Ibom Plaza Extension should stretch from the end of the pedestrian bridge connecting the business section of the current plaza into the abandoned space that hitherto hosted the Urua Uyo.
This is a workable solution.
The next question a critical mind would ask will be, “what’s the strategy?” What’s the guarantee that the traders will move into the new space?
This is my suggestion.
The government should engage the traders who are selling by the roadside around the plaza about the plan to build an Ibom plaza extension for them and get their buy-in from the conception of the project. Discuss the plan, get their buy-in, discuss the architectural design with them, embed their suggestions into the design, set short achievable timelines for the project and handing-over dates, and follow through with the set timelines.
After the above engagement is successfully completed, the government should organise and formalise the traders’ group around the plaza and amicably control their activities to ensure their safety, orderliness and hygiene of the areas they are now operating. This will win their cooperation for the government. Organising and formalising the businesses there will help the government bring them first into its informal sector tax net. With short to medium term support, those businesses will scale and become sustainable and taxable small-scale businesses that will naturally begin to contribute to the development of the state through taxes.
The Ibom plaza extension should be designed to serve as the business arm of the plaza to operate concurrently with the open stalls in the current plaza.
The preferred design of the Ibom plaza extension should be 2-3 storey malls, with sufficient architectural inhibitions on the ground to prevent display of wares on the floor, in addition to other facilities as may be required. Strict prohibitions on displaying of wares on the floor should top the priority of the management committee when the project is completed.
The plaza extension should be exclusive for a specific category of wares that would have minimal wastes. Specifically, I’d suggest the extension should be for clothings, footwears and jewelries.
Of utmost importance, the shop ownership arrangement should be on a long-term rent-to-own basis so that the nano-scale, indigenous traders can partake.
Do not approach the plan to end street trading around the plaza from an environmental standpoint. Approach it from an economic standpoint. From the environmental standpoint, the government thinks about the traders as a concern that should be dealt with. If the plan is approached from an economic point of view, the government will think for them caringly and how to make the most out of the murky situation. There is a difference between thinking about someone and thinking for someone.
I believe as my father taught me, that a good business person can make gold out of a pigsty.
Consequently, the government’s economic plan for ending street trading around the Ibom plaza should seek to achieve four (4) sustainable objectives, viz:
• Organise and formalise the traders
• Move them from the streets into shops
• Support them to own the shops and scale
• Integrate them into the tax net with a long-term goal of having them contribute sustainably to the development of the State.
Forceful evacuation of the traders around the Ibom plaza has failed repeatedly, therefore the strategy should change.
