Yobe gov warns traders against illegal activities

From Hamisu Matazu, Damaturu

TKabiru he Governor of Yobe State, Alhaji Ibrahim Gaidam, has urged traders in Damaturu and other parts of the state to do businesses in the spirit of free competition and desist from acts that could sabotage the market and make life harder for ordinary citizens.

Governor Gaidam, who made the call in a statement signed by his spokesman, Abdullahi Bego, said the state government would work with law enforcement agencies to ensure that any trader who attempts to prevent others from engaging in lawful trading is arrested and prosecuted.

The statement noted that some traders within Damaturu are engaging in “illegal trade practices in the market in order to stifle free flow of business, stymie competition and unfairly influence pricing to their selfish advantage.”

According to the statement, “a trader from Taraba State with a lorry-load of yams on his way to Maiduguri had a flat tyre in Damaturu and he decided to start selling him yams there before he could fix his lorry. But members of the Damaturu Traders Community forced the Taraba trader to stop selling the yams on the illegal excuse that there are already yams in the market and so he would not be allowed to ‘interfere’ with the regimes of availability and pricing that they had set up”.

“The net effects of these practices are that small and medium businesses in the state capital are stopped from growing and free competition is sacrificed at the altar of interests that are demonstrably selfish and against the law”.

The governor’s spokesman said the government would work with the state House of Assembly to solidify the law being enacted to make the practices punishable.