Two days after the All Progressives Congress (APC) concluded its week-long nationwide membership registration exercise, a major Lagos market shut in a bid to force the traders to register for the party remains under lock and key.

Iponri Market in mainland Lagos was shut last week Saturday, February 8, by Folashade, daughter of APC National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, in her capacity as the Iyaloja General of Lagos.

Lamenting their fate, one of the traders had said – as reported on Tuesday by News Express: “On Saturday the Iyaloja General came with a legion of RRS policemen to lock the market up. Our crime was that she invited the Market Committee Association for a meeting with her and they refused to attend so she locked up the market to show us who is boss. Anyway, a lot of us went to her residence yesterday in Alausa to plead with her to open the market, she told us to return on Thursday and said we MUST all bring our APC registration slips when coming.”

The market has remained closed even though many of the traders registered with APC as directed. Worse, neither the Tinubu dynasty nor the Lagos State Government under the watch of Babatunde Fashola has bothered to offer any explanation on why the market has remained shut and the traders subjected to heavy losses.

“It is embarrassing,” veteran journalist and public affairs analyst Jimi Disu said this morning on The Beat FM, Lagos. “We have been talking about this for four days and the government has not deemed it necessary to speak on the issue. We have a right to know why the market was closed.”
Disu, who confessed to being a big fan of Governor Fashola, could not hide his disappoint over the market closure, saying he could feel the traders’ pain even though he doesn’t have a shop in the market. “He (Fashola) is the governor and he should come and explain to us why the market is closed. People are losing money,” Disu said.

Wondering if this is how APC will run the country if it happens to win the presidential election, Disu said: “We are crying about the mess PDP has put us in (but) is this how they (APC) will run the country.”

•Photo shows Tinubu and Fashola.

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