Ugochukwu Alaribe, Aba

We now use rain boots to wade through the flood because this is the only way we can sell goods to our customers. Nobody comes here to ask about the price of anything. They call us on phone and we bring the goods they want to the other side of the market.”

Flood-at-Ariaria-Market-2

This is the sad submission of traders in A- Line of the Ariaria International Market, Aba, Abia State while lamenting over the flood which have almost taken over their shops.

The traders have sent a save-our-soul message to Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, pleading for his urgent intervention in  checking the flood before it puts them out of business.

In a chat with Vanguard Metro, VM, the traders lamented their suffering, saying they are daily losing their customers because their Lines have been flooded and made inaccessible since the rains set in. They also expressed fear at the continuing rise in the volume of the flood  on  a daily basis.

Deplorablenature of roads

The traders alleged that the flood situation became worse when a building was erected at the portion of land adjacent the market formerly occupied by the Fire Service where the water flows into whenever it rained.   They also noted that the deplorable nature of roads in the Market and the Ukwu Mango area had aggravated the situation.

It would be recalled that the Ukwu Mango area leading to the Enugu –Port Harcourt expressway was rehabilitated by the administration of the immediate past Governor, Theodore Orji, a development that was heralded  with much fanfare. But four months after, it is back to square one.

According to a trader, the bad state of roads in and around the market has made the place a no-go area, prompting customers to go elsewhere. “Before we had customers from Cameroun, Maiduguri, Cotonou, Ghana, Bayelsa, Calabar, Uyo and Port Harcourt.

But many of them now choose to go to Onitsha and even Lagos because of bad roads at the market and around Aba. This Ukwu Mango area is a stone throw from the Enugu-Port Harcourt expressway, but the access road is not passable. We longer make sales. So government should come to our aid,” he pleaded.

VM gathered that in 2014, patent medicine dealers at the drugs section of the market near the Ukwu Mango area lost goods worth over N2 billion to flood.   One of the traders at A-Line, who gave his name as Joseph, pleaded with the Governor to respond to the situation with utmost urgency.

“We want the state Governor, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu to come to our aid. We are really suffering and don’t know what to do. The Governor has started rehabilitating some roads in Aba; we want him to come to our aid in order to help us out of this ugly situation we have found ourselves,” he said.

Another trader at A-Line who deals in drinks and fruit juice told our correspondent that flood water had on several occasions entered her shop and soaked her wares which she later washed and dried up in the sun.

A visit to the area revealed that some of the traders now rent lockup shops upstairs which they use as parking stores to save their wares from the flood while they display few goods at their main shops.

A cross-section of traders who besieged our correspondent, had chorused thus: “You have seen it for yourself. How many persons did you see daring  this flood to come and buy or even to ask for the price of anything?

You were here when someone called me to bring goods for him at Enyimba Line. That is how we now sell things here: customers will call you on phone and you will go and deliver the order to them. Nobody comes here to buy or price anything.

We can only move in and out of our shops with rain boots. We even buy rain boots for use by our customers as no customer would want to wade through this muddy flood water.” The fate of patent medicine dealers is no less pathetic as some of them have packed out of their shops since the rainy season set in.

Even the barriers which they erected at the front of their shops to the check the menacing flood are no longer useful as the volume of water continues to rise.

According to a patent medicine dealer who did not want his name in print: “We are calling on the government to do something about the state of roads and the problem of flood at this market. I lost over N300, 000 worth of goods to flood last year. You can see that even the barriers I erected to check the flood has been washed away.”

Originalmaster plan

However, the Abia Government says it has heard the cries of the traders and would soon to take steps to upgrade the state of infrastructure in the Market and reform it to its original master plan. According to a statement signed by the Chief Press Secretary to Gov. Ikpeazu, Mr. Godwin Adindu, a new directive towards the government plan of action would soon be made public.

According to him, upgrading of the Ariaria International Market is part of  government’s large-scale plan of a comprehensive infrastructural renewal of the commercial city of Aba which has begun with massive road rehabilitation and the de-silting of gutters and drainage channels in the city.

He disclosed that the original master plan of the market, which included spaces for drainage channels, banks, fire service, parking lot, police post and other support services, have been defaced, stressing that any structures outside the original master plan will be demolished.