Women Tax: More Protests May Rock Nnewi Over Taxation

Baring any hitches thousands of market women at Agbo-Edo main market, Nkwo Nnewi, Anambra State may stage another protest over what they termed imposition of taxation today.

The women had locked up their shops and trooped to the streets of Nnewi to protest imposition of N4,800 tax on them by the leadership of the market in collaboration with the State government, but it was foiled by the Nigerian police.

Divisional Police Officer of Nnewi Central Police Station, Mr Ikechukwu Egbochukwu led a police detachment to stop the protest which he said was illegal.

The women had taken to Owerri Road from Nkwo Nnewi market chanting war songs and causing human and vehicular traffic as they headed for Nnewi North Council headquarters where they met police barricade at the entrance.

Commissioner for commerce and Industry, Robert Okonkwo when contacted through his Public Relations Officer, Shedrack Nnanna said he would get back to me but never did as at press time.

It was a sight to behold as nursing mothers with strapped babies at their back in the scorching sun and old women took to the streets.

Spokesperson of the women identified as Mrs Chioma Jesus said that traders in the market, especially women, were over burdened with multiple levies in the market. She said that the most vexatious one was a recent imposition of N4,800 per trader in the market as tax no matter how small your business is.

She said: "We face authoritarian leadership in the market. We are not given a breathing space at all. They said we should pay N4,800 this time per head. But we resist that even though they have vowed to deal with defaulters decisively as from next Monday. We want government to tell us why women should begin to pay tax in Anambra".

Concerned Traders of Agbo-Edo United Market Association led by Mr Christopher Osuojukwu also raised alarm over the high levy his members are paying. He enumerated stallage fee, development levy, sanitation and security levies, loading and unloading, parking, gate, among others as some of the fees the traders pay.

Osuojukwu said: "After paying all these levies yet the market has no public convenience. Traders and customers urinate and excrete indiscriminately. There is no drainage system. And when it rains the result is that everywhere is flooded which is hazardous and injurious to health and can cause outbreak of epidemics’’.

The women and concerned traders are of the opinion that current leadership of the market under Mr John Nwosu , having completed his second tenure should step aside for a new election.

Nwosu however in his reaction on telephone said the tax in question was imposed by the State government uniformly in 52 markets across the State "and Agbo-Edo main market case will not be an exception." He said he was only two years in his second tenure and would go when it expires.