Oyo State governor, ‘Seyi Makinde, on Tuesday, ordered the suspension of the planned demolition of a section of the burnt popular Aleshinloye Market in Ibadan.
He added that the planned demolition should be put on hold until a proper alternative has been provided for the affected traders.
This was as he also declared that his administration will restructure the market to avert a recurrence of the fire incident that destroyed goods worth of millions of naira, last March.
He added that the state government has provided some sort of palliatives to serve as immediate cushion for the victims of the Aleshinloye Market fire incident.
Governor Makinde stated these when he carried out an on-the-site inspection of the market, noting that it was sad that, though there was a fire station in the market, it could not stop the fire.
He maintained that the government would work on the market with a view to putting in place a proper architecture that could avert future fire incidences.
Makinde said the state government, the Ibadan South-West Local Government Area and the Ibadan South LCDA would work on cushioning the effect of the fire incidents on traders in the next few days.
“There are two things out there. One is to organise the market itself, because right there where the fire broke out, there is a fire station, but they could not stop the fire.
“So, we have to ensure that we do whatever is necessary to make sure the fire station is functional.
“Two, there is a place that the local government is going to demolish and I have told the chairman that the place should not be demolished until an alternative is provided for the people.
“We will be working on that together within the next few days so that we can cushion the impact of the fire incident on the people.
“We have provided some palliatives for them and I told them too that we have to work together to ensure that this kind of thing does not happen again.
“We have to enlighten the people. It is better to avoid anything that can lead to fire incident than to curtail it,” Governor Makinde said.
“So, the advocacy should be that people should store things, especially things that have the potential to get burnt, with utmost caution.”
