Ogun, Lagos communities send SOS to govt over 7-day demolition ultimatum

NaijaAgroNet:

The elders and community leaders of Akute, Baale Akin-Osin and Oke-Aro communities in Ifo Local Government Area of Ogun State have sent a Save-Our-Souls (SOS) to the Ogun and Lagos State governments over a seven-day demolition ultimatum, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The ultimatum issued to landlords and occupants of estimated 60,000 houses, include mosques, churches and public schools within the Water Pipeline area, affected the building housing the headquarters of News Express.

According to the News Express reports, shock arising from the sudden notice by the Ogun State Urban and Regional Planning Board has claimed two landlords while several others have taken ill.

A press conference held Thursday in Akute, the elders under the aegis of joint Community Development Councils (CDCs), who also claimed dual citizens of Lagos and Ogun states, under the All Progressives Congress (APC), wondered if the ultimatum was a way of paying them back for tremendously voting for APC in the last general elections.

As law-abiding citizens, the community leaders and elders say they are not against the Adiyan Water Project by the Lagos and Ogun State governments which is designed to benefit the public. According to a grand patron of the CDCs, Alhaji Ganiyu Busari, they want the Ogun State government agency to re-consider the measure of the specified area to be demolished: rather than the expansive 50-metre “set-back”, this could conveniently be reduced to 20 metres “set-back,” so that less houses would be affected.

“We wish to intimate the government that most of the affected house owners are aged and retirees who have no steady means of livelihood. Pulling down their homes will further aggravate their predicament. We also wish to call the attention of the government to the fact that any meaningful project should be people-driven,” Busari said.

*Isaac Oyima with additional report from News Express

 

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Pix: Govs Amosun of Ogun and Fashola of Lagos