The leadership of the Farm Centre mobile phone market in Kano city has banned women from visiting or staying at the market beyond 7pm.
Daily News 24 reports that the restriction was announced on Thursday by the market’s chairman Ambassador Jamilu Bala during an interview with journalists.
“No women will be allowed to visit this market or be seen in any of our shops after 7pm. Farm Centre GSM market is a place where mobile phones are sold and repaired not a place for inappropriate activities,” he said.
It was learnt that the new rule was imposed following concerns about alleged immoral acts performed with women in some of the shops in the market.
“Normally, almost every market in Kano closes by 6pm and Farm Centre market will not be an exception.
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“Any trader found with a woman in any shop after 7pm will be seriously dealt with because this market is meant for business not immorality,” Mr Bala warned.
“We want to sanitize our trade so that Allah will bless our hustle. This rule is not meant to humiliate anyone but to serve as deterrent,” he added.
He said the order would take effect from Thursday.
However, some of the traders said they welcomed the directive but took exception with how the announcement was made.
“We agree that this is a good development. Everyone doing business in this markets wants to see it thrive. But we are not happy with how some people were recording video clips of our shops, showing our faces and sharing those clips on Tiktok and other social networks,” said Ahmed Isa, a trader.
“This gives the impression that traders in the market are immoral and indecent people. We are hurt by this”.
Another trader, Umar Dantaro said videos of traders at the Farm Centre market have been circulated widely, with commenters accusing them of immorality.
“It is very unfair for people to record our video clips during the announcement of this directive and share them on social media.
“The market’s leaders should have informed all of us by visiting us privately shop by shop,” he said.
However, it is unclear how the market’s leadership intends to address the issue of some women who also conduct legitimate businesses in the market such as food vendors.
