‘Our tenants were not arrested at Abuja arts and crafts market’

None of the tenants of the 21 shops operated by a private developer, UmmaKhalif Limited, at the Abuja Arts and Crafts Village, was arrested during police raid on Saturday, the proprietor of the company, Mahmud Mahmud said yesterday.

Officials of the National Council of Arts and Culture (NCNC), alongside truckloads of policemen, stormed the market and arrested 92 people.

Mahmud said in a statement yesterday that “None of our tenants of the 21 shops we operated was among those arrested by the NCAC and the police. All our tenants met today (Sunday) and none of them is in police custody.”

The proprietor urged the police authorities to enforce the December 18 court order issued by Justice A.S. Umar of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, ordering the NCAC to open the market pedestrian gates locked by its Director General Otunba Segun Runsawe last year, until the determination of the pending suit. On June 23, 2017, Runsawe locked the pedestrian gate linking the market with Shehu Musa Yar’adua Centre and Silverbird complexes.

Days before the raid of the market, traders and artisans in the market under the auspices of the African Arts and Cultural Heritage Association (AACHA), petitioned President Muhammadu Buhari to restrain Runsawe from using police officers to harass them.

The traders said the closure of the market by NCAC was a hatchet plan to realize a failed long ambition of taking over their allocated shops.