Lagos demolishes school building, duplexes over permits
Four property owners at Hitech Estate, Odonikin village, in the Eti-Osa Local Government Area, Lagos State, lamented they have been thrown into debts after officials of the state government demolished four newly-completed buildings in the area.
The affected structures comprised five joint duplexes, a four-bedroomed duplex, a five-bedroomed apartment and a three-storeyed building owned by a private school – Learning Lands.
Although the buildings were reportedly destroyed because the owners did not get necessary permits to embark on the constructions, the victims said the government failed to give them prior notices before the buildings were brought down.
One of the house owners Mrs. Augustina Daniel, said she got a call around 11am last Friday that bulldozers were destroying houses and rushed to the scene with my husband she explains that the building, comprising five joint duplexes, worth N200m, was brought to the ground in their presence. they however met with the officials, but none of them talked to them.
‘We wrote a letter to the commissioner on Tuesday and it was not acknowledged. If a house is to be demolished, a notice should be given; we didn’t get that. The information we have is that the demolition was done because there are people in that area who have interest in those pieces of land.’ she said.
Mr. Omomega Ashofor, whose residence was also demolished, said he had spent about N70m to put up the structure and asked that he should be compensated for the damage.
He said, it was the neighbours that alerted him to the demolition. He also complained that he did not get any notice not to talk of time to respond.
Austine Kazeem, who said he planned to move into his five-bedroomed flat this month, said, ‘I am based abroad. If any notice had been issued to me, I would have gone to the ministry to sort it out.’
Efforts to speak with the Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Steve Ayorinde, proved abortive as calls put across to his line did not connect. He had also yet to respond to a text message sent to his phone since Wednesday.
However, the spokesman for the Lagos State Task Force on Environment and Special Offences (Enforcement) Unit, Mr. Adebayo Taofiq, said officials of the agency only gave security backing for officials of the ministry.
