Anambra state governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, Friday, marked over 1000 shops for demolition at Ochanja market, Onitsha.
Bellnews gathered that most of the marked buildings had structural defaults, including cracked walls and decking, felling pillars and sands, road obstructions, among other challenges.
Soludo, who led a joint taskforce and professionals to monitor the various sections of the market, described the shops/buildings as illegal construction with no extant approval from the government.
The governor, represented by the Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, Dr. Obinna Ngonadi, added that the administration has intention to decongest markets, as well as make them inhabitable to the International standard, and warned owners of illegal structures to quickly remove them or get ready to pay the government to that effect.
When the team visited Building Materials market at Ogidi, the governor hailed traders for complying to government orders including participating in the ongoing enumeration, which according to him, would help to capture and document data of all traders and their enterprises for welfare, security and other purposes.
Also speaking, the Chairman, Anambra State Physical Planning Board, Mr Chike Maduekwe, assured that Anambra State Materials Testing Laboratory would visit all the markets to test the structural integrity of their buildings so as to find out those to be spared with some amendment and those to be outrightly demolished.
Speaking in separate interviews during the exercise, the Caretaker Committee Chairman, Ochanja market, Mr Bonaventure Muo, his counterpart from Building Materials market (Ogidi), Mr Jude Okonkwo and Mr Adinu Onyechi of Building Materials 2 and 3 (Ogidi and Ogbunike), commended the governor for the move, assuring that they would support every government’s programme aimed at sanitising the markets.