By Ifeanyi Okolie

Uneasy calm pervaded the popular Trade Fair Complex along Mile 2-Ojo Road yesterday following protests by some aggrieved traders over what they called. ‘a sham election’ by some members of their union.  The traders who were armed with posters and leaves paraded round the market calling on the authorities and security agents to intervene in order to avert trouble in the market. 

They were said to be angry over what they described as a ‘kangaroo election’  conducted by the incumbent President, of Auto Spare Parts and Machinery Dealers Association (ASPMDA),  Sunday, Ohanazueze ,  who they also alleged  to have imposed a  successor on the traders by  preventing four other contestants from participating in the exercise. 

It took  the timely intervention of some top members of ASPMDA   who dissociated themselves from the  election, and a team of battle-ready policemen to prevent what would have turned into a blood encounter between the aggrieved traders and those in support of the election at the market.

Addressing the angry traders who clamoured for a re-run of the Wednesday’s  election, the Secretary,   Board Of Trustees,  ASPMDA,  Mr. Charles Okafor , who berated  the  President over his actions , assured them that their plight would be looked into and another election will be conducted.   According to him, “The president ran the association as a personal property and was unhappy over his botched ambition of elongating his tenure.  We  botched his ambition to elongate  his tenure beyond four mandatory  years, to only God knows, and because of that, he decided to turn his market into a burning hell. 

The traders have been suffering  and they need a change in government.   The President  announced the election date within a period of two days and some of the candidates pulled out due to the short notice.  But this did not stop him as he went ahead with his election and the candidate he was imposing on the traders, as if it was a joke, they went ahead and they got two other people who were also members  their party to contest with the  imposed candidate and he won with a thousand votes while other  contestants went with  23 and 25  votes each.  

 You can image the kind of ridicule he is subjecting the ASPMDA market to, a market that has over 8000 traders in it. We are calling for overturn of that election. And we are not part of it.  The two contestants that showed up 48 hours  before the election  were  stage -managed.  We are not going to bow to it and  election must be re-run”, he stated.    

The Scribe of the Board Of Trustees who said also that  the board was not informed of an election maintained that the president have been acting on his own.   “ He has been running the affairs of this market as his personal property   and when I learnt of the ensuing crisis, I came in to forestall it  and I made efforts to reach the  President.   He did not respond, because I knew this was not the kind of election that brought him into office.  As the secretary of the BOT, I am disassociating myself from his activity.   As far as I am concerned,  there was no election and those who participated were not elected by this traders union.    I know he is doing this because we botched his ambition of elongating his tenure.

Nine month after he was elected, he set up a committee to review the Association’s constitution, so he can elongate his tenure but we all stood against it. This market is nobody’s property.   It belongs to all of us.  We cannot sit and watch him throw away all we have laboured for  years .   This market is the pride of an Igbo man, and it will compete with any market in the world”.