From Cyriacus Nnaji, Lagos
Residents and business owners in Kokonut by Waterside in Ajeromi/Ifelodu have cried out as task force suspected to be working for the Lagos State Government demolished their properties without prior notice.
Michael Egbailo who introduced himself as the Chairman of the community, while speaking to Journalists, disclosed that the task force which arrived the scene about 11: 30 am on Thursday, August 26, came in Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI) truck belonging to the Lagos State Government, even as a truck load of security personnel of more than 30 Mobile Police men provided them security cover.
Egbailo also reported that the task force arrived at the scene with demolition equipment and bulldozed the entire structures in the area after claiming they were working on the instructions of the Lagos State Governor.
Egbailo said “This morning about 11: 30 to 12 noon this morning, we saw some people; they said they are from Lagos State, they came with Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI) van and they came with caterpillar with which they demolish structures. When they came, they said all of us should go outside, I came out and asked why we should go outside, and I said I can’t go out, if you come to a place to work, at least you meet somebody here, I asked, what is the problem? I happen to be the Chairman here, but they said they don’t want to discuss with me, they said they had their order from the governor and the only person that can stop them from demolishing anything here is the Governor of Lagos State. And I don’t have the phone number of the governor and so I don’t know who to call.”
The task force did not only come to demolish the place, they came with intimidation. “First, they intimidated everybody; they came with about 30 to 40 Mobile Police. The person that led the squad did not give me his name; he said he is a Director; that we should come to Alausa, Room 16. We have been to Alausa.
He said there was no prior warning before the demolition “There was no prior warning, no notice, no vacation order before they came here today. That is even what I was asking them, if you want to pull down a structure, at least there is going to be a notice, but here there was no notice, how can you pull down the structures? They said the order is from the governor.”
They destroyed the entire structures but spared the property belonging to the Lagos State Government, “You can see the whole mess, our guest house is broken down, all the shops here, what they told me is that they would destroy everything here, what they are going to leave is the Lagos State Jetty, and even the Lagos State Jetty, we are the ones that gave Lagos State the land to build their structure, so why would you destroy our own place and leave the structure? So we don’t know,” Egbailo queried.
On what he has done in the meantime, he said he has tried contacting the authorities, all to no avail. “We have tried to call the Director of Physical Planning; but the office said he is on leave; that he is in the US, so we have not been able to get to him. We called a guy at the office of Physical Planning, but he said he doesn’t know anything about it, no notice; there is nothing to warrant them to destroy anything here.”
Another resident in the area who incidentally is the son of Michael Egbailo, Oluwole Egbailo who spoke to our correspondent gave further clarification on the matter. “My father is the custodian of the property they just demolished, when I came around, about 12 to 1 o’clock ,I just saw their vehicle, they were blowing siren round the place, before I could approach them, they have started to demolish the whole property without any notice. They said they are from the governor, which we would want to know, we have document, the payment we made to Physical Planning, we have the receipt, so we want to know our offence before Physical Planning would now order the demolition of our property, we pay our tax and we are citizens of Nigeria, they can’t just molest us that way.”
He argued that ordinarily, they should have been served a notice to pick one or two things out of their houses “We want to know what happened? No notice, at least if there was notice two, three hours time to pick your things, but these people just entered and started demolishing things just like that, he lamented.
All effort by this reporter to reach the office of Physical Planning , Lagos State, proved abortive.
