Following repeated burglary of shops belonging to Igbo traders by armed hoodlums, the shop owners in their thousands have shut down their shops in protest at the Swali Ultra Modern Market in the Bayelsa state Capital city, Yenagoa.
The traders also protested the arrest and detention of their leaders by security operatives, threatening to keep their shops closed until the leaders are released or charged to court accordingly.
It was gathered that the market, Secretary, Igbo Traders Union, Jude Osigwe, lamented that most of the traders have lost millions of Naira in cash and in goods to hoodlums in the past three months.
According to him, ”in the past 8 months, some armed hoodlums have been coming to our shops to extort us and when we reported the matter to the police, they said, there is nothing they can do.
”When we took the matter to the market management, they promised to look into the matter but yet nothing has been done. Only recently, when we came to open our shops, we discovered that our shops have been burgled and cash and goods carted away.
”The security men we paid to secure our shops told us that it is the spirits that are responsible for the theft and in the last three months, over 70 shops have been burgled.”
Reacting to this development, President of the South South Youth Wing of Ohaneze Ndigbo, Chief Arthus Chinedu demanded the release of the arrested Igbo leaders, warning that the state stands to experience total shut down if the leaders are not released.
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