ALL AFRICA.COM

Yenagoa — Traders and business owners in Bayelsa have urged the state government to ease the lockdown occasioned by COVID-19 pandemic in order to save their businesses from collapsing.

The South-South Coordinator of Ohaneze Ndigbo, Chief Chinedu Arthur-Ugwa, while speaking with journalists in Yenagoa, pleaded with Governor Douye Diri to consider the plights of traders, especially Igbo people who constitute 80% of business owners in the state.

He said the economic live of the state is gradually dying due to the lockdown and promised that all business owners will abide by the safety roles stipulated by government when the lockdown is eased.

The traders’ leader, however, urged Bayelsans to continue to support the policies and programmes of the present government in the state for it to deliver on it promises to the people.

According to Arthur-Ugwa, the lockdown is affecting the business owner negatively while greater number of them struggles to feed their family in the trying times of COVID-19.

He said: “As you know, Igbos constitute about 80% of people doing business in Bayelsa, since this lockdown started, we know how they have been suffering, the other day, we pulled our resources together to get some palliatives for them, so that somebody will not be tempted to anything untoward.

“We plead with the government and Governor Douye Diri give us the privilege of opening our businesses, some of our goods in the shop may spoil, we are ready to comply with any safety roles by the government.

“It’s been too much for us, most of our people were worst affected in the demolition of structures in the markets across the state, government should please be lenient to us”, the trader added.

Governor Diri had late April, 2020 imposed a total lockdown on the state when the first case of COVID-19 was recorded in the state. Since then business shops had remained under lock and key.

Although, the Federal Government and some states have started a gradual easing of the lockdown, Bayelsa State is still strict on the lockdown enforcement for all categories of businesses, except those dealing on food items.