AEPB extends deadline for no hawking policy

The Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) has extended the November 5 deadline it earlier stipulated for hawkers to cease operation in Abuja, to November 11.

The Director of the Board, Isa Shuiabu, announced this on Friday in Abuja, while addressing executive members of the Abuja Hawkers Association.

He said Abuja had been designed by the Government as the capital territory, a place where everything should be properly planned, and hawking not tolerated.

Shuaibu added that the evacuation of hawkers from the city cut across all kinds of hawking, including bicycle hawking and recharge card stands.

According to him, there is no dignity in hawking, as it endangers the lives of the hawkers and makes the environment dirty and unhealthy.

"It is better for you to be in a place where you have your right and your child can inherit it than for you to be a vagabond on the street and you are being pursued day and night,” he said to them.

The Director, who solicited for the cooperation of hawkers, said that he would apply force, if at the end of the new deadline, they failed to comply.

Responding on behalf of others, the Chairman of the hawkers, Aliyu Abdulaziz, urged the board to assist them in securing places in the local areas and promised to convey the new deadline to other hawkers, saying that they would comply with the directive.

The hawkers had earlier pleaded with the board for an extension of the date, so as to enable them to secure an alternative trade zone.

After the deadline, defaulters will be made to pay a fine of N50,000 as against the former N3,000.