The Lagos Environmental Sanitation Corps (LAGESC) is stepping up its operations and ensuring total clampdown on recalcitrant traders disobeying various warnings and advocacy on illegal street trading and hawking in different parts of Lagos.
The Corps Marshal of the Agency, CP Gbemisola Akinpelu (rtd), who disclosed this on Wednesday at the Command Headquarters, Bolade-Oshodi, added that Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has directed that all the roads in the State be rid of any form of an impediment to ensuring the free flow of traffic as well as safety of all and sundry.
In her words, “walkways are meant for pedestrians to walk and not for trading activities so as to give room for motorists to enjoy smooth vehicular movement”.
The Corps Marshal further noted the rising numbers of hawkers on our major highways pose a grave danger to motorists as criminals often disguise as hawkers, exploiting the opportunity to dispossess road users of their valuables.
She explained that directives have been given to LAGESC officers to move into all the major highways and arrest the hawkers for appropriate prosecution, stressing that traders should move away from the streets and occupy State-approved markets to engage in legal trading activities.
Akinpelu recounted that many lives have been lost due to brake failure as ‘hit and run’ drivers sometimes knock down hawkers, while some roads are always locked down as a result of activities of traders who display their goods on walkways and roadsides for sale.
Commending the ongoing Ikoyi/Victoria Island Cleanup exercise, which has recorded remarkable success with the joint efforts of other agencies such as Environmental and Special Offences Unit (Taskforce), Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), Lagos State Special Offences (Mobile) Courts and the Lagos Neighbourhood Safety Corps (LNSC), the Corps Marshal expressed the readiness of LAGESC operatives in sustaining the cleared areas in Ikoyi and Victoria Island.
