*HURIWA WANTS ABA DECLARED A DISASTER
AREA BY FGN;
*WANTS MINISTRY OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY
DOMICILED IN ABA:
In order to
save indigenous industrialization and salvage the commercial hub of South East
from imminent collapse due to natural and man-made disasters, the Nigerian
Government has been asked to declare Aba city in Abia State as a disaster area
and approach the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for assistance
through the granting of completely interest free credit facilities for the
immediate facelift of this rapidly dying commercial city.
A
pro-Democracy Non-governmental organization - HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA ) which made the clarion call to
President Muhammadu Buhari after its investigate team visited Aba in Abia State
to assess the extent of infrastructural damage occasioned by floods and poor
electricity power and the negative implications to the growth of small and
medium scale industrialization, also canvassed the relocation of the
headquarters of the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Trade and Industry to Aba in
Abia State because of the obvious fact that the city houses the greatest
percentage of local small and medium scale genuine manufacturers and investors.
Alternatively the Nigerian Government should set up a subregional office of the
Federal Ministry of Trade and Industry with the full complement of a Federal
Permanent Secretary heading the office.
Besides, HURIWA
in a statement signed jointly by the
National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media affairs
Director Miss Zainab Yusuf has called on the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to visit Aba with a
view to distributing immediate relief materials to thousands of traders that
have so far lost their precious wares to floods and other natural disasters
like erosion.
HURIWA stated that; " from the benefit of
hindsight and based on our evidenced based findings, we can state without
equivocation that traders in some parts
of Ariaria International are facing series of infrastructural and natural
disasters occasioned by persistent floods and the degradation of road
infrastructures. We can attest that the
debilitating flooding that is ravaging the popular A –Line and the drug
section of the market is a major commercial threats to the livelihoods of
hundreds of thousands of Nigerians. We learnt from credible sources and from
verifiable eye witness accounts that indeed the past eight years have not been
the best of times for traders in this part of the city".
"From
our discreet probe those who should know reliably informed us that in the year
2014 alone, patent medicine dealers at the drugs section of the market lost
goods worth over N2 billion to the flood. The traders alleged that flooding of
the area was aggravated by a building erected on a water way adjacent the
market close to the portion of the State Fire service. This obstructive
structure is reported to be owned by the son of a powerful former government
official. The flooding, the traders said is further made worse by the
deplorable nature of roads in the market and the Ukwu Mango area which the last
administration in the state claimed to have rehabilitated but which can not be
verified".
HURIWA also
said a meeting of its management team would be convoked this Wednesday in Abuja
to draft letters to President Muhammadu
Buhari and copy to the Director General
of National Emergency Management Agency
(NEMA) and to the Federal
Ministry of Trade and Industry in Abuja to draw the attention of the
Nigerian State to the emergency situation of Aba in Abia State and to call for
urgent but comprehensive remedial measures to arrest the decline and save
hundreds of thousands of Nigerians from going out of their respective jobs as
owners of small businesses.
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