Mudslide victims plead, as LASG demolishes shanties

Residents of shanties at Kureta, off Amara-Olu Street, in the Agidingbi area of Ikeja, Lagos, that were affected by mudslide yesterday appealed to the state government to provide them with accommodation as its bulldozers began demolishing what was left of the structures.
The mudslide, which was caused by hours of heavy downpour in many areas of the state, claimed the life of a newly-wed teenager, Faisa Muhammed.
Yesterday, as the rain subsided, bulldozers of the Lagos State Task Force on Environment moved into the area to demolish the shanties.
Our reporter, who was at the scene of the incident, saw residents picking the pieces of what remained of their properties. They were also overheard discussing, in Hausa, their fate, especially the problem of where they would be sleeping next.
 City News gathered that most of the inhabitants of the area were people who came from the northern part of the country, especially from areas ravaged by the Boko Haram insurgency in Borno State, into Lagos but could not afford standard accommodation.
The inhabitants lamented that the demolition had rendered them homeless as they did not have any other place they could move to.
 One of them, Ibrahim Goni, told City News that he relocated from Borno State two years ago as a result of the Boko Haram crisis.
“I was paying N15,000 yearly in this place to the Omo Onile (land grabbers). The government should pity us because if we have a better place to live, we will not be staying here,” Goni said.
Defending the government’s action, however the General Manager of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), Michael Akindele, maintained the slum was not habitable.
“The area is a buffer zone which is not good for human settlement.
“The Lagos State government has been sensitising people staying in flood-prone areas and wetland to vacate such areas to avert loss of lives especially, during the rainy season,” he added.