Demolition sparks outrage in Lagos

There was an outrage over the weekend’s demolition of structures by the Lagos State Government at the Arowojobe and Mende estates in Maryland, Lagos.

The state government said the exercise was meant to reclaim the right of way of the Odo-Iya Alaro channel.

But residents protested against the demolition and accused the government of giving a two-hour notice.

In one of the demolition clips that went viral online, a woman lamented that the government only gave them two hours to pack out.

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She said, “Happening right now at Mende Villa One. Two hours to pack out? Two hours, that was what the Lagos State Government gave, and they are here demolishing. Mende Villa, this is in Maryland. Where do they want us to put our property?”

A female singer, Yemi Alade, also lashed out at the government over the demolition, saying, “Lagos State, what is going on? Does it make sense that people will invest millions of naira, millions of dollars into real estate, buy houses, buy land and Lagos State (government) will go and be breaking walls, breaking houses, rendering people homeless overnight? And it’s done serially. It is done back-to-back. Now Maryland, Mende area is on fire. People are sleeping in their houses, waking up the next day homeless.”

Meanwhile, the Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, earlier posted on his X account on Saturday.

Wahab said, “We also visited Mende Villa, Maryland, where the developer initially claimed there was a drainage approval on the property. The directors who were in the know of what transpired at the time were invited to speak on the issue but confirmed that the developer was given temporary and conditional approval to leave a 20m setback from the edge of System 1 but he encroached on the setback thereby obstructing the flow of rainwater.

“However, by the magnanimity of Governor @jidesanwoolu, the ROW was approved to be reduced to 100m from 140m and spread on a 60/40 basis (60 Mende/40 Ogudu) instead of the initial 140m sitting on the Mende side.

“The instruction to immediately continue the removal of all structures on the alignment has been given to the enforcement team after the 1st notice to remove was served on them in 2021 and the last notice was served in November 2023 after the meeting with the stakeholders.”