Market women in Anambra State are planning to demonstrate naked to draw attention to their requests over taxation of women in the market.
An executive member of Eke Awka Market Women Association who pleaded anonymity, told our correspondent that the government has made good their threat of taxing women by locking up shops of women in Eke Awka main market who refuse to pay the sum of N3, 000.
The source said the women have met and planned to embark on the protest if government refuses to back down on the raid of their shops.
Meanwhile, the Public Relations Officer of Awka South Market Amalgamated Traders Union(ASMATU), an umbrella body that oversees markets in Awka metropolis, Comrade Obi Ochije has backed the planned naked protest of the women if only to stop government from taxing women in the state.
Ochije who spoke with journalists in his office said that he is aware of the planned protest, and that he is appealing to government to rescind the decision as ASMATU will not sit back and watch government maltreat traders in the state.
“I am calling on government to go and consult widely on the issue to avert a protest that could be likened to the Aba women’s riot of the 1929. Asking market women to pay N3, 000 each as tax is exorbitant. Some of these women just returned from the north with their children to start something.
“Some of the women do not have wares worth up to that amount, so government must either stop the tax or better still review it to what the women would be able to pay easily. I am also advising the women to consult the leadership of their market to ensure dialogue with government, but where it proves above them, ASMATU will step in.”
It would be recalled that on the announcement of taxation for market women last three weeks, women from Eke Awka Main Market had quickly mobilised to the government house to protest the directive, but were alleged to have been ignored by top government officials.
Ochije said the government agents stormed the market yesterday and started locking up shops belonging to women who are yet to pay the N3,000 taxes.