A group of Ebonyi Market Women on Monday stormed the Ochudo State Secretariat in Abakaliki on a peaceful protest.
According to report gathered by 9News Nigeria correspondent, the women were protesting what they described as high taxation by agents of the state government.
The women, who are mainly yam sellers at the Margaret Umahi International Market, Abakaliki, capital of the State, marched from the market down to Ochudo Secretariat.
They noted that they have suffered arbitrary increase in tax within a short period of time which is making live unbearable for them.
At the Secretariat, some security agents locked the gate on seeing the advancing women.
Speaking during the protest, the Leader of the Women, Mrs Imo Nweze accused revenue collecties of arbitrarily hiking the revenue collectd from them daily.
She also noted that drivers have refused transporting their goods to the market due to high fees they are also beong charged at the gate before they are allowed to drive into the market.
She said: “We are yam sellers. Previously, we were staying at one spot, but we were asked to move to another spot. Later, they completed the construction of the open stalls and asked us to move into it and we obeyed the government.
“However, due to the fact that the open shops were not conducive to our products, we were experiencing heavy loses. Before you will sell 100 tubers yams, 40 to 50 tubers would have gotten spoilt because the shop is not conducive for such crops”
“We went and asked the market leaders to allow us to stay outside around the stall and they agreed. From then, revenue people came and started charging us N50 daily.
“From N50 naira they increased it to N100, from N100 they increased it again to N200 and we were begging them that it is too costly. When this government came on board, it was increased again to N300.
“It was very difficult. Most of these women are widows, it is from the same business they train their kids in school, pay house rent and buy food to eat and take care of other expenses. So it became very difficult for us to pay.
“It was so difficult that we had to be dipping our hands in the union purse to make up whatever the women can afford and pay so that we don’t have problems. With government .
“In our meeting last week, we calculated and found out that we have spent over N2.5m of union funds to augment the tax we were paying and our union account is almost empty”
“On Saturday, they came and said we will now be paying N400n daily. That is N2800 weekly or N145600 a year for one person and that is to much for us to pay”
“If we ask drivers of buses and worries to takes us to the market they will say no, that they are being charged between N10,000 to N20000 before they are allowed to enter and offload. This has led to the drivers increasing their fairs making it difficult for us to make any reasonable gains”
“So we have come to complain to Our Governor, Francis Nwifuru and his wife, Mrs Mary-Mauduline Nwifurụ to come to our aid. We elected him into office and we know he will not allow us to suffer like this”, she said.
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