By Gabriel Enogholase & Samuel Oyadongha

BENIN – HUNDREDS of traders at the popular Lagos Street market in Benin City, weekend, protested alleged extortion and imposition of levies on them by officials of the state Task Force on Illegal Structure, Street Trading and Traffic Obstruction. The protest led to the closure of business activities.

The protest is coming on the heels of the arraignment of traders before an Oredo Magistrate Court by the Oredo Local Government for various offences, ranging from violation of environmental laws to refusal to pay the prescribed fees for the evacuation of waste in the market.

Vanguard learnt that the traders were protesting the increment of the N500 monthly levy for waste evacuation to N1,000 imposed by the task force officials without prior notice or negotiation.

Some of the traders who spoke to newsmen expressed shock that they were asked to pay N1,000, which they said had affected their daily earnings.

Chairman of the task force, Major Lawrence Loye, said the levy was fixed by the state government.

… as Sagbama council workers fault sack

Yenagoa – Workers of Sagbama Local Govern-ment Area of Bayelsa State, sacked by the report of the Finance and General Purpose Committee of the council over alleged irregularities in their appointment, weekend, faulted their sack. They described the report indicting them as “doctored” and “unconstitutional”.

The sacked workers, in a Save-Our-Soul letter to the state governor, Chief Timipre Sylva and his Deputy, argued that the action of the council chairman was illegal, following their certification by the biometric exercise conducted by the state government and the deployment of some of the purportedly sacked staff of the council to the employment of the state Local Government Service Commission.

In the report released last week by the council Chairman, Prince Perez Peretu, over 29 dead indigenes of the area and 77 ghost workers were on the employment of the council and collecting salaries since 2003.

It showed that aside from the over 29 dead, 44 were discovered to have falsified their age, while some were on sick bed due to old age.