Task force clamps down on illegal trading on rail tracks, confiscates wares

The sound of an approaching bulldozer belonging to the Lagos State government on Monday sent hawkers on the stretch of the railway track at Ikeja-Along running in different directions. Some of the traders who were the first to see the convoy of trucks carrying officials of the State Task Force quickly grabbed a few of […]

The sound of an approaching bulldozer belonging to the Lagos State government on Monday sent hawkers on the stretch of the railway track at Ikeja-Along running in different directions.

Some of the traders who were the first to see the convoy of trucks carrying officials of the State Task Force quickly grabbed a few of their wares, tucked them in sacks and bolted away. The unlucky ones who could not save their wares had them confiscated and many of them were arrested.

The Chairman of the Task Force, Chief Superintendent Olayinka Egbeyemi, had on Sunday evening warned traders engaged in illegal trading along railway tracks in Lagos metropolis to desist from it as the agency was planning a massive clamp-down on their activities.

Egbeyemi also issued a 24-hour ultimatum to those who had erected illegal sheds by the side of the rail tracks for the purpose of trading to remove them, failure of which would attract the wrath of the law.

Traders affected by the action of the task office stood from a distance watching as the bulldozer moved from one stretch of the rail line to another from Oshodi to Ikeja-Along.

An official of the task force, who did not wish to be named, said that the activities of traders on the rail tracks were an eyesore. He added that some of the traders were an environmental nuisance as they openly defecated on and around the rail tracks.

One of the traders, Jumoke Kasali, appealed to the Task Force Chairman to release their wares to them as trading was their only means of livelihood.

“It is from the little profit I make from the sale of local soap that I feed my family. How do I survive now that they have taken everything away from me? If they give me back my goods, I won’t come back here again,” Kasali said.

Another trader, Chioma Ezeh, said she started selling by the rail track after her shop at Oshodi was demolished. Ezeh said, “It is the determination to survive that forced me to start a small second-hand clothes business. I know that it is wrong to trade by the rail track but what do I do?”

But Egebyemi dismissed the traders’ claims and excuses, maintaining that those involved in trading on rail tracks were not only putting their lives at risk, they were also a threat to others.

He said that the enforcement operation was carried out as a follow-up to the warning issued by the agency over the weekend that all illegal traders on rail lines across the state must leave.

“At yesterday’s enforcement operation, different types of goods, ranging from second-hand clothes, shoes, belt and fairly used electronics to gas cylinders were confiscated. This is a pointer to other locations where you have illegal traders on railway lines such as Oshodi, Yaba, Oyingbo, Pen Cinema and Agege that it will no longer be business as usual until a zero tolerance on this is maintained,” Egbeyemi said.

The government seized the opportunity to reiterate that anybody caught collecting illegal fees from traders operating on rail lines across the state would be seriously dealt with in accordance with the law.