No fewer than 10 people were wounded
yesterday at New Market Road in the
commercial city of Onitsha when men of
Anambra State Special Task
Force against Street Trading popularly
known as (‘Ndi Mpiawa Azu’) clashed with
Rug and Carpet traders in the area.
Daily Sun reported that trouble started
when men of the task force drove through
the New Market Road where they stopped
to carry four bundles of rug carpet bought
by some customers.
The traders resisted their move to carry
their goods, which led to physical brawl
between them.
According to Ugochukwu Ugwu who was
one of the victims of the task forces
brutality, they resisted the move by the
force from seizing their goods because they
were not trading on the streets or along the
road.
He said “We refused because we saw it as
intimidation on us by the Ndi Mpiawa Azu
because as you can see, we have shops
here and nobody was selling outside his
shop. What happened was that there was a
customer who finished buying rugs, so my
boy was folding the rug when these men
struck, beat us and took away the rugs”
“These Task Force men have formed the
habit of using the said government backing
to intimidate and extort money from
traders. But we will not allow them to treat
us the way they did because they used
very dangerous weapons which included
axes, matchet and dagger on us” he said.