Lucky Obukohwo Reporting
The President of Traders Welfare Union of Nigeria, Comrade Lucky Orukpe, has blamed traders in Edo State for being responsible for the high cost of food prices in the markets.
He made this allegation while addressing journalists at the premises of the Edo State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists(NUJ) during a peaceful protest in Benin City.
He told Journalists that the current hardship being faced by the people as a result of scarcity of commodities in the various markets in the state was as a result of the unwholesome practices of the different unions in those markets.
According to him, the activities of Unions in the markets are causing more harm than good.
“The nefarious acts of compelling traders to join their different unions with exorbitant sums of money and different items before selling their farm produce and stuffs and for those who bow to their evil demands of the unions are restricted on the size of produce to sell and days of coming to ply their trade in the market e.g. once in a week and thereby creating artificial scarcity of such farm produce and in the process causing inflation and poverty for such traders except for the executives of the union who can sell on a daily basis.
Orukpe said that those traders and market women who refused to join such unions were dealt with by the illegal union leaders.
“Anyone who refuses to join the union, they conspire against such traders, arrest the trader and in most cases their goods are seized by so called illegal leaders” adding that, ” there are cases where individuals are willing to join the union, so they can do their businesses, but that they are told that the space for membership was closed and that the trader should go elsewhere to trade thereby frustrating such trader who has already paid the required fees by the Local Government Council Revenue officers.
Comrade Lucky Orukpe therefore appeals to the Edo state government, the State House Of Assembly and the relevant authorities concerned to wade in and save the situation with a view to curbing the menace of such needless unions.
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