17th September, 2010
Wife of the Lagos State Governor, Mrs. Abimbola Fashola has charged market leaders in the state to wage war against filthiness in markets across the state.
Fashola spoke at the First Leadership Training Seminar for Market Leaders in Lagos, organised by Code 3 Communications in conjunction with the Lagos State Market Development Board at the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT Pavillon, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria.
Decrying the high rate of dirtiness of markets in the state, she charged them to make cleanliness their watchword and be good ambassadors of the state.
According to her, market leaders must ensure that the standard of markets in the state was raised to meet up with international standard.
Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Prince Rotimi Agunsoye in his address said if the ideal mega city was to be enhanced, there should be a pragmatic effort by market leaders to champion the cleanliness of their markets.
The theme of the workshop is “Lagos Mega City, Responsibility of Market Leaders.”
Chairman, Lagos State Market Development Board, Alhaja Abibat Mogaji said the need for the seminar was to integrate market men and women into the mega city plan of the state government.
Mogaji, whose speech was read by Alhaji Wasiu Oyewole added that because of the mega city plan, there was the need to reposition the market leaders in various local governments and local council development areas.
Managing Director, Code 3 Communications, Mr. Sola Olaleye stated that the training of market leaders became imperative because of the enormous challenges facing market leadership across the state.
“Apart from the mega city status of Lagos, which required that all infrastructures should be in the right positions, the discovery that most markets have become major problems to their LGs and environment, has made it compulsory to resort to complete rebuilding or renovations of most market in the state.
“In the past, markets are located without any consideration for traffic, possible expansion of roads, security, safety, fire and environment.
These had led to series of inferno that left behind it anguish, wailing and frustration,†he said.
He stated that market leaders saddled with the responsibility of maintaining the markets must be trained on how best to keep the markets clean and in the best standard to align with the mega city plan of the state government.
Speaking on “the Role of Market Leaders in Maintaining the Megacity Nature of Lagos”,  Bidemi Idowu from the Lagos State University stressed that market leaders had the roles to ensure that traffic congestion was curbed in markets as well as ensure that some people did not sleep in the markets.
Somoye Michael, a consultant on Environment spoke on “Market Sanitation: Roles of Market Leaders”, saying that the cleanliness of abattoirs and slaughter houses presented one of the most difficult of all public health problems.
Michael said that conscious efforts shall be made to maintain an adequate standard of hygiene, adding that market leaders were act to ensure adequate provision of sanitary facilities by the government or from consensionists so that there would be no appearance of indiscriminate defecation all over the place.