Demolition of small scale business premises in Warri poses grave danger to socio-economic life, Ariyo

Warri based legal practioner and Peace Building Consultant, Barrister Robinson Ariyo has described the ongoing demolition of premises of small scale business owners and petty traders along major roads in Warri by the Delta State Special Task Force on Environmental Sanitation as one that poses grave danger to the socio-economic life of people in Warri and Environs.

The legal practioner, APC Chieftain and House of Assembly hopeful in the hugely anticipated 2015 elections who was utterly dismayed at the extent of destruction of premises of small scale business men and petty traders along major roads in Warri and environs on the 15^th day of April, 2014, “argued that it would have been better that sufficient and particularized  legal notice was issued to each of the affected trader and business men to enable them relocate and reduce their losses arising from the impromptu and apparently malicious scale of damage of their property and goods”.

Some demolished shops at Ajamimogha Road, Warri

 According to Barr. Ariyo, the demolition exercise “mirrors the obvious disconnect between the Government and the people. Not doing so has resulted in removing an estimated 2,000 otherwise active traders from the market and by extension make life difficult for their dependent most of who are young people”. He opined, “this would certainly have a multiplier effect of increasing the rate of crime in the society thereby further endangering the life of innocent people in Warri and its environs”.

Barr. Ariyo, who is the National Coordinator, Volunteers for the Protection of Itsekiri Rights, VPIR, posited that “if the government were empathetic as it should have been, alternative stores and or market places should have first been provided before the expiration of such notice and eventual destruction of such property”, noting that he looks forward to a state where there would be a connection between the State and the Government.          

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