Abuja tyre dealers seek FG’s assistance to acquire permanent site
Story from Abah ADAH, Abuja
Members of the Abuja Automobile Tyre Dealers Association (AATDA) on Monday solicited the assistance of the Federal Government of Nigeria towards securing a befitting permanent market place in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The call was made by the association’s new Chairman, MOD (Man of Order and Discipline of Nigeria) Lt. Col. Akah Samuel Nwangbo, while fielding questions from pressmen immediately after he and the other executive members were sworn in at the Union’s temporary site of Apo Tyre Plaza.
Disclosing the topmost priorities of his administration, Nwangbo stressed, “We will look at how the government will assist us to get a place of our own to build market, and with the belief that the FCT minister is our boss, so when we go to him, he will have a listening ear and give us a place where we will stay because here we are just doing container businesses.
“I know, based on the road that’s meant to pass here, the developers can come at any time, and when they come, we may being constituting nuisance to them. So we will go to government, and I believe that government will hear us and give us a place to build a permanent market for ourselves.
Apo business community entirely have met with the Minister before now, which I knew that there is a place they are pointing hand for all Apo business owners, i.e. Apo mechanic village, the Apo spare parts section; but I’m talking here precisely about Apo tyre dealers.”
He said based on meetings held between the FCT authorities in the past, “they are proposing Waru according to the information, and were not comfortable with that. But I feel tyre dealers have the enough population that is okay with the number we have and so we deserve to have a market of our own. We have more than 500 members and huge revenue will be going to government’s coffer if have a permanent place to advance our business”.
Earlier in his inaugural speech, MOD Lt. Col. Nwangbo, while pledging on behalf of the new EXCO to unite members towards achieving the goals of the Union, solicited the cooperation and support of all, urging them to forget about the inconveniences suffered during the election for them to forge ahead as a people.
“Now, campaigns and elections are over, positions have been fought and won but we are all winners, hence, no victor, no victim. I salute all your courage. We are now ready to work and therefore solicit your cooperation to move on the fast but right lane in order to take our association to a greater height.
“On behalf of my entire executives, we pledge to unite and bring everyone under one umbrella to work together as a team for our strength lies in our unity and oneness. No one should see the other as an enemy as we are all brothers bound in one purpose, hence united we stand.
“Consequently, all those who were expelled or suspended or who voluntarily left or resigned their membership of the Association under the previous administration due to one reason or the other are hereby recalled, pardoned and welcomed back to the fold. We shall hereafter seek true peace and reconciliation of all aggrieved members so that together we will achieve the goals of this association,” Nwangbo said.
The new Secretary General of the Association, Arinze Okoye, who stressed the Chairman’s position on permanent site acquisition, said, “Since I joined this union more than 15 years ago, they have been chasing us around from one spot to the other. So we’ve been trying to see that we get the place of our own.
“The onus is on us now, the new executives, to know how to liaise with the FCT administration to see how can get a permanent place.”
