Saturday morning of August 26, 2017, will not be easily forgotten by many traders who had shops around the Eke-Ukwu Owerri Market, when bulldozers accompanied by a horde of armed security operatives, acting on the orders of the Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, stormed the Market, and forcefully evicted the traders, demolished their shops and destroyed wares worth millions of naira.
It was reported that during the process of demolition of the market, the life of a little boy who was trying to prevent his mother’s shop from the demolition was shot by military personnel.
Despite all the various names being ascribed to the governor, he has not allowed that deter his good plans for the state and its citizens as he has just surprised the traders affected by the demolition.
The governor recently gave out free shops market sellers moved from Ekwu-ekwu Douglas market to a new location where it will not affect traffic and cause any form of illegal congestion.
Eke-Ukwu Owerri Market, which was located along Douglas Road Owerri, was the biggest and most popular trading centre in the state, attracting traders and shoppers from different parts of the country. The market was also the traditional and ancestral market of the Owerri people, established long before Nigeria’s Independence in 1960.
