Nnewi Market Women Protest Tax Imposition

Thousands of market women at Agbo-Edo main market, Nkwo Nnewi, Anambra State yesterday took to the streets in protest against the imposition of N4,800 tax on them by the leadership of the market.

The protesters chanted war songs as they headed for Nnewi North Council headquarters before they met a team of policemen that barricaded the entrance gate to the council secretariat.

According to the Divisional Police Officer of Nnewi Central Police Station, Mr Ikechukwu Egbochukwu who led the team that stopped the women, the protest was illegal as there was no police approval.

Spokesperson of the women who gave her name as Mrs Chioma Jesus said that traders in the market, especially women, were over-burdened with multiple levies in the market, adding that the most vexatious one was a recent imposition of N4,800 per trader in the market as tax, no matter how small your business is.

“We face authoritarian leadership in the market. We are not given a breathing space at all. They said we should pay N4,800 this time per head. But we are resisting that even though they have vowed to deal with defaulters decisively as from next Monday. We want government to tell us why women should begin to pay tax in Anambra state”, the spokesperson said.

In corroboration with the women’s complaints, another group in the market under the auspices of Concerned Traders of Agbo-Edo United Market Association had enumerated stallage fee, development levy, sanitation and security levies, loading and unloading, parking, gate, among others as some of the fees the traders pay.

“After paying all these levies, yet the market has no public convenience. Traders and customers urinate and excrete indiscriminately. There is no drainage system. And when it rains, the result is that everywhere is flooded which is hazardous and injurious to health and can cause outbreak of epidemics,” the concerned traders led by Mr Christopher Osuojukwu lamented.

They contended that the current leadership of the market under Mr John Nwosu who they alleged had done his second tenure should step aside for a new election to be conducted.

But Mr Nwosu in his reaction on telephone said the tax in question was imposed by the State government uniformly in 52 markets across the State “and Agbo-Edo main market case will not be an exception.” He said he was only two years in his second tenure and would go when it expires”. [Vanguard]