With just seven days to the Eid-el-Kabir festival, some ram sellers have lost their rams to the Lagos State Environment and Special Offences Enforcement Unit which raided their stalls and confiscated dozens of rams.
Olaide Agboola, the Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP) who led the team, said the ram owners were trading in prohibited areas in state.
Agboola said that the State Ministry of Agriculture had designated some locations for sale of rams in the state but the owners, instead of making use of those places, had converged at Ijora Olopa.
The CSP said the traders refused to relocate from the place despite officials from the unit giving them a 24-hour deadline to vacate the place.
“We have told them that Lagos State Government will not tolerate littering the state with waste; they should go and sell their rams in designated areas. I will make sure that not a single ram remains in this place today. This will serve as a lesson to other traders,“ he said.
The ram sellers, however, denied they were notified that their sales point was prohibited. They also claimed that the Enforcement Unit did not give them any notice.
They appealed to Governor Babatunde Fashola to release the rams.
Speaking on Monday, Muhammed Mudi, leader of the ram sellers, said that they were not expecting the officials since they had had approached an official of the Ministry of Agriculture who gave them permission to sell rams at the location.
“An official from Agriculture Ministry gave us permission to use this place, but I was surprised when I heard that he had been arrested,” he said. “These ram sellers came from Sokoto State and they are not aware of the relocation order.
“That is why we are appealing to the governor to allow us to make our sales here this year; we promise not to bring our rams here next year.”
Mudi said that the task force came to the market and carted away their rams in trucks.