By Alphonsus Nweze
The chairman of Onitsha Main Market, Chief Innocent Ikechukwu Ezeoha, has explained why his administration suspended the renovation of the corporate headquarters of the Market popularly called “White House”.
Chief Ezooha made this known during an interview with newsmen where he refuted spurious allegations against him by an online media platform, AIFA, media which alleged that he was planning to impose revenue on the traders which he would deploy in building a plaza at Johnson Street in the market.
Denying the allegations, the chairman however said the renovation was necessitated by a recommendation/indictment by international trade team which visited the market but was not satisfied with their office.
He said the team refused to come into the office because it was not befitting
Chief Ezooha said they themselves saw the need to renovate and upgr6 the office and bring it to modern standard.
Accordingly, he said, they set up a Committee which worked with a contracting firm to asses the cost and they come up with N21m as the cost.
He said they were ready to run with the vision until some people in his executive threw spanner in the work and insisted that they must pad the estimate to enrich themselves which he resisted.
The chairman said the proposal is now in the cooler until those people drop their demand because he can’t be a party to inflating the cost of the renovation.
He also said as it stands now they can’t move ahead with the can’t collection of the levy for the renovation from traders as the people would poison the mind of the traders.
He said his administration has brought radical and progressive changes since he was appointed about two and half years ago.
Some of the achievements, he said, included decongestion of roads within and outside the market among others..
In the same vein stakeholders and traders of the multi-million naira Market said that there is peace in the market due to good leadership of their chairman, Chief Ezeoha.
The traders said there is no iota of truth in the allegations against their leader, adding that the whole thing was fabrication by opposition against Governor Chukwuma Soludo, Everist Ubah, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Market and Chief Ezeoha himself.
They said the opposition would never see anything good about the on-going transformation by Governor Soludo in Anambra State and that of Main Market in particular.
One of the traders who is stakeholder in the Market, and a Line Chairman, Mr. Chijioke Obi fondly called “Ezeobinwa” said the allegations should be ignored because every good leader always faced negative propaganda and backbiting by enemies.
He said he has stayed in Main Market since 1983 and has witnessed successive leaders but none of them was transparent and truthful like Chief Ezeoha, saying that if Chief Ezeoha is fraudulent as the online medium, AIF Media claimed, they, the traders would have raised alarm.
” Those who fabricated the report against Chief Ezeoha want to truncate peaceful atmosphere of the Market. They purposely want to tanish his image unnecessarily but traders will not agree because Chief Ezeoha is working. His administration has attracted a lot of development in the Market. As you can see, the Market is cool and peaceful
” As a line Chairman, there is nothing like plotting to annex Johnson street so as to build plaza by Chief Ezeoha’s administration.He who the cap fit, let him wear it” he said.
Continuing he said: “There is nothing like imposing the Caretaker Chairman on the traders. In fact, some people are very bad, imagine threatening not to return Soludo the only Governor who provided access roads to Main Market. But not knowing that traders have concluded that Soludo’s second tenure is sacrosant”
” I think it is when a leader is not doing well that people will be calling for his removal ? So, I have not seen evil or an offence Chief Ezeoha committed that would warrant his removal as the Caretake Committee chairman”
Also speaking, a line Chairman and one of the Main Market stakeholders, Mazi Chike Okeke, said: ” when the enemy is speaking, you will know. It is only a blind man that you can convince that there is no oil in a soup. Chief Ezeoha’s achievements are clear and visible. I am a titled man. What I am telling you is nothing but the truth. Before the regime of Chief Ezeoha, Bright Street was no go area in terms of wastes, yet we were paying sanitation levy while somebody was pocketing it. But immediately Chief Ezeoha became the Chairman, he evacuated all the heaps of waste at Bright Street and Main Market vicinity”
