Beautification Of Lagos: Pains & Losses Of Petty Traders

Would it not be better if the Lagos Govt spent the money you guys want them to use to build markets to improve more schools?  Our country is not going to move forward if a massive amount of people continue to be street traders.  It makes no sense as it is a low profit margin business.  Instead of building markets, I would rather the govt help relocate some street traders to rural areas in Nigeria.  Provide them with land and have them farm.

Anyways it looks like we have all have our strong beliefs so lets leave it at that.

It looks to me that what Fashola is trying to do is to clean up Lagos (build roads/sanitise/provide better security).  While at the same time inviting private investors to invest in tourism and other aspects of the economy.  Few private investors will want to invest in Lagos at it's current state and few tourist will want to visit Lagos with the way it looks now.  If the Govt can successfully clean up Lagos, I see it as a major toursit destination.  I have been to Miami beach several times and in my opinion Lekki beach, Alpha Beach etc.  are all by far better South beach (the sand and water, not the entertainment).  If Lagos is able to build a booming tourist destination the citizens would benefit tremedously with the vast amount of jobs that will be created.  And workers will earn alot more than the $1 per day most street traders are earning.  

Cleaning Lagos has to start somewhere and unfortunately the street traders must go.

Here @Dcdal,  so far you have yet to give reference for every idea you have come up with. You claim you would rather that money be spent on schools and relocating the traders to farms and what not and that somehow will lessen the case or solve the issue. Here is your chance to actually show that you have thought throw all that you just proposed. Can you please give us a good idea of where you think that will lead us in the near future?? @dcdal ,  I would like know how you came to that opinion /idea of yours. What good do you think that will do in the short and long run@Dcdal

Way to put it straight @AlmondJoy , 

Last thing lagos needs is another OPERATION CLEAN UP LAGOS,  WE should be sick of it by now. Heck, even Idiagbon and Buhari could not pull it off,  As soon as the soldiers were gone, the traders were back again. As soon as Idiagbon was dead, they were back again ,

uuummm,  dcdal,  so you are advocating that the government take away the stores from the people and give them education and farming instead?? and that is common sense??? I would seriously like to understand how that is a more effective and cost-effective way of dealing with the problem and actually cleaning up the place. Bear in mind that many of those traders are college educated and many have farms and families back home in the farming business but still feel they need to sell their wares anyway they can to make ends meet.


( this is getting real good)

LOL.   All along you guys have been saying "Oh they are poor how will they earn a living?" So now they are "College Educated and owners of farms"   LOL  

Can you imagine what you are reading here?  I agree with you all the way.  This is really getting good!

_Observing!



  I think something is wrong here.  This lander totally lost me here and I have no where else to turn.

I think its you that have problem reading - you can't even spell unbelievable correctly you had to write unbeweable.

Jeeeez.

No need to attack me @Labiyemmy,  I meant what I posted. your post does not address the main issue of the debate but goes off on a tangent that is not even being addressed by this,  and by the way ,  my spelling is exactly what is meant ,  I spell it that way as my way of expressing how I really feel about what is being posted,  have you ever seen donald duck talk ?? yeah,  you might get a clue how that works another time,


UNBEWEAVABLE!!!!!!!

So because I do not agree with you, I have now become dogmatic? Thanks for the compliment.
Looking at what you wrote, anyone would conclude that you are actually the one with a bad case of Turret's syndrome.

Yes, govt. should have love & compassion for its' citizenry, but that love & compassion should not include rewarding wrong behaviour. That is the point am making, that you seem to be missing. Well-run societies thrive under the rule of law. Period. If everyone commits an act of illegality in order to draw govt.'s attention to their plight, where do you think society would be?

One little point of correction. . . .am not fixated. You are the one who cannot think outside the box, because you feel since govt. cannot enforce laws, its' okay for everyone to keep breaking them. Free your mind and stop defending the indefensible!


Go through all the posts that have been made here, and you would see that various alternatives have been suggested. Must everyone repeat what they have said more than once, so that you can get the message?

So you mean you Are not the one who has been pushing the conversation that way all this while by your own hands??? @Dcdal




Why are you suddenly offended when I ask you to explain your strategy the very same way you come at me with your statements?? what is wrong ?? Are you mad that I can play the game exactly the same way you play it ??  I am still waiting for you to back up your idea with solid statements ,  No need for the personal jabs,  it is not my style and I am not into that,  simply asking you how you process your idea considering what is really happening in lagos as we speak ,

, again - a meaningless word.

No thank you--you do not have to agree with me. Just maintain some consistency as to whose side and what issues you stand on.   Then I guess I will stick with my Turret's and you have become a "flipping flip-flopper"!!!  You could lose a lot of elections that way you know.  You do not change opinions because you fear repeating yourself.  Have you ever heard of the word "emphasis"?  Who in the world is condoning lawlessness or defending the indefensible?

I said make a safe transition for the traders and stop wasting our money by pretending to maintain law and order in Nigeria.  What has been accomplished with your proposal of dealing with these undesirable elements in our society?  It has never worked in the past with all your bulldozers. So get out of your "box" and try a new "position".  As you can see back to "square one".  I guess my "bad case of Turret's" isn't so bad afterall.   At least, I propose a healthy change while you choose to maintain the "status-quo" of "begging the question and solutions".  Highly fallacious!

I believe that has been the point you and I have been trying to make all along,  STOP WASTING MONEY AND START WORKING ON LASTING SOLUTIONS and not Doing the same thing over and over in the name of CLEANING UP LAGOS. It has not worked in 20 years and  what makes us think it will work now if we do not tackle the main issues, the ROOT problem.WHY DO THESE PEOPLE KEEP COMING BACK TO SELL THEIR WARES On the STREET?? What Can we do For these People to help them MOve off the street?? What exactly do we gain by moving them elsewhere?? How will it profit the state as a whole if we successfully move these people off the streets in a fashion that they will not come back to the same again?? How do we then deal with this and at the same time uphold the law and put some money back into the STATES POCKET ,  These are some very valid questions that need to be asked. HAS ANYONE EVER READ THE STORY OF HOW THE PARKING METERS WERE INVENTED IN OKLAHOMA CITY IN THE UNITED STATES??? I recommend the story to Those of you who are going on and on about these people violating the laws over and over and how governments have dealt with such in the past successfully.

 

Thank you o! I thought I was the only one that saw the evils of street trading, until you came and added another perspective that showed us the unhygenic aspect of the whole thing.

Those claiming govt. should build shops, keep forgetting that even if you build shops and some of these street trading folks move in there, another batch of people will spring up to take up their place and trade on that same spot on the street. It has happened before.

They will always tell you, they don't have money to rent stalls inside the market, no matter how cheap those stalls are. I know some women who have shops inside the market, but deliberately left those shops to come out and trade on the street because according to them, "market moves faster on the streets." A few of those women live in my cousin's neighbourhood. So not all those street traders are poor, destitute people who cannot afford to rent their own shops. Am not saying that govt. does not have its' own flaws, or does not build expensive shops, but there are other markets with less expensive stalls, that are curiously boycotted by traders, who want to continue earning their living from undisciplined buyers who patronise them by the roadside, or on the streets!

 I also gave an example of Aswani market, where large open spaces abound within the market towards the rear, but the traders ignore those spaces and prefer to still move to the roads to sell their wares. Nobody passed a comment on that.

Instead everyone is blaming govt. for trying to enforce trading regulations, and environmental laws. When Oniru market was demolished recently off Lekki-Epe expressway, the traders were given an open field with little stalls, where they could continue to trade not too far from the market, until the market could be rebuilt.

Some of them shunned the open field, and decided to line the road with their wares. Meanwhile, the leaders of the market men/women who are traders too like themselves, turned their association into a cartel and extorted money from the roadside sellers. So apprently, these roadside sellers or street traders have enough money to pay as bribe to the market leaders, but no money to pay as rent for the little stalls. 

Thank you!  Places like the USA have over 350million people.  They can enforce laws.  Do you see people hawking gala on the highways there?   Even in Accra, Ghana?

Good question kobojunkie!  Why do the people hawking keep coming back?  Because the government is an "impotent" one that has abnegated it's civic and political duties to it's people.  Why should anyone take the government seriously when we all understand it is a cat and mouse game?  Go and hawk in the streets of London and see what will happen to you and your fellow hawkers!   Now those are places with a functional government, not in Nigeria so please do not blame the petty traders for what you failed to teach them.

You want to demolish petty traders means of livelihood to increase the armed robbery sectors.  Very smart I say, very smart!

I tell you!  Now that is how you enforce laws not by polluting the environment with reeking mopols and incompetent tractor drivers who cannot even operate simple machinery.  Polluting the environments without hospitals to treat the bulldozing causing asthmatic attacks!