The Federal Capitial Territory Administration (FCTA) is considering the removal of Wuse Market and replacing it with a secondary school, Alhaji? Isa Shuaibu, Director, Abuja Environment Protection Board (AEPB), said on Saturday in Abuja.
Shuaibu dropped the hint while the board was on a raid of illegal hawkers within the market premises.
According to him, the long term solution to the problem of hawking in the area is the removal of the market.
“The market attracts a lot of trading activities, especially through hawking, which has been prohibited by the FCT authorities.
“The authorities will have no choice than to comply with the original concept of the Abuja master plan, which originally planned for a secondary school to be located here.
“The minister is considering the removal of the market as I speak to you; he has set the ?plan in motion, though it will take a long time but definitely the market will be removed.’’
Shuaibu also bemoaned the existence of some informal markets in the FCT, adding that those markets constituted threats to a clean city.
He said the cost of keeping the city clean around market premises was high, adding that the existence of informal markets was not in the Abuja master plan.
The director said the board would continue with the enforcement and would sustain it throughout the month of December to rid the city of hawking.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that AEPB in collaboration with officials of the National Drugs and Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC),?jointly carried out the raid.
Mr Kalu Eze, one of the hawkers, who spoke to NAN, decried the high cost of shops in the market.
Eze appealed to the FCT administration, to make provision for the less privileged, to enable them trade for survival. (NAN)