Traders Return To Walkways, Roadside Amidst Govt Ban

Kazeem Badmus

Traders in Osogbo, the capital of the State of Osun, have returned to walkways as selling points, few months after the State Government banned roadside trading, findings revealed.

Visits to some major markets in Osogbo showed that the traders are gradually moving back to the roadside and occupying the walkways in defiance of the government’s directive.

OSUN DEFENDER was at the Ota-Efun market on Tuesday and observed that traders displayed their goods on the walkways while security operatives watched them without taking any action.

Notable among the goods displayed are foodstuffs, tomatoes, and second-hand clothes with pedestrians having to walk by the roadside.

The medium also observed reduction in the number of security personnel enforcing the ban against what was obtainable when it was first announced.

Govt. Don’t Follow Through Processes – Group

Meanwhile, a Civil Society group, Centre for Social Justice and Public Protection (CSJPP), has said that government at all levels only make laws without following them to the letter.

The group Coordinator, Akin Akanji, while reacting to the news of traders returning to walkways, bemoaned what he termed lack of proper implementation.

According to Akanji, governments are fond of jettisoning processes once they make little success on them, stating that such practice cannot ensure a better society.

He however warned the government that allowing traders to return to the walkways and roadside may lead to impending doom and threw its effort in the dustbin.

Akanji said “It is so unfortunate that we are in a country where the government doesn’t follow through processes to the end. Governments only make laws and jettisoned them whenever they have achieved little success.

“Banning roadside trading was a good and welcome development, but we can see what is happening now and gradually, we will forget about it and people will resume their normal ways of doing things.

“If care is not taken, the traders will move from the walkways and occupy the road and it may lead to danger and it will defeat the purpose of the ban in the first instance”.