Some victims of the crisis in Shasha market in the Akinyele Local Government Area of Oyo State have said they will reject any attempt by the state government to return them to the area to continue their trade.
According to the victims, the market space is not big enough for them to trade and their Yoruba hosts are also frustrating them.
Speaking with SaharaReporters, the traders noted that the Chairman, Shasha Traders Association, Alhaji Usman Nyako, said he had discovered another market in the Iroko area of Akinyele village with enough space to offload thousands of trailers.
One of the victims said, “The space in Shasha cannot accommodate more than 90 trucks at a time.”
A female victim, Mariam Abdullahi, who led hundreds of other victims of the Shasha crisis to the palace of the Seriki Hausawa, Sabo in Mokola, Ibadan, the Oyo State capital on Wednesday evening, said many of their people had moved out of Ibadan.
“As you can see, that is the seventh bus taking our people back to the North. Many have gone back while many have relocated to some other parts of the state. Those of us here are trying to get a place to live. We cannot go back to that area again. We have left Shasha and we have left it for good.”
An old man, Abubakar Muhammed, who hails from Shanga Local Government Area in Kebbi State, said he had been selling tomatoes in Shasha since 1983.
Muhammed slammed the poor handling of the situation by the government, saying,” We saw death but God helped us. I am not sure any reasonable person can return to Shasha again. As for me, I won’t go back. Many of our people have also decided not to go back there. I have not built a house but my goods that were destroyed were worth N2 million.
“The whole crisis should be blamed on the government. The governor didn’t respond to the issue on time and that was why there were many casualties,” he said.
