Demolition At Lagos Site Renders 50,000 Homeless

No fewer than 50,000 people were last Saturday rendered homeless at Ijora Badia in Lagos, following the demolition of their homes by the State Task Force on Environmental Sanitation.

The Tide source reports that the demolition was carried out during the monthly sanitation exercise.

Eye witnesses told newsmen that armed policemen accompanied officials of the task force, who arrived in the area as early as 7 a.m., in15 trucks and tractors, to demolish the structures.

Some families were seen at the scene trying to salvage their properties as officials of the task force moved in to commence demolition.

Some angry youths in the area were also seen gathered in groups, discussing the development.

In an interview with reporters, chairman of the task force, CSP Bayo Suleiman, said that the demolition was to enable government put befitting low cost houses on the site.

Suleiman said that the now displaced residents of the area were illegal occupants and had been given adequate notice by the state government to vacate the place before today.

“Everybody must leave within 24 hours or face forceful ejection,’’ he said.

The chairman said that the officials of the government had three weeks ago also met with the community leaders and advised them to vacate peacefully without being forced to do so.

However, Mr Adewole Aworetan, the son of the late Baale of Iganmu Alawo Community, Chief Titus Aworetan, told newsmen that no reason was given for their ejection.

Aworetan said that the inhabitants of the area were relocated there about 40 years ago from their original habitat, the present site of the National Arts Theatre in Iganmu.

He said that the residents would embark on a peaceful demonstration to the state secretariat later, to protest their ejection from their homes.

Also speaking, the leader of the ram sellers in the area, Alhaji Yakuza Mohammed, alleged that they were not given adequate notice.

Mohammed said that the government did not also make provision for their resettlement, noting that the population of the area was over 50,000.

An official of the Social and Economic Rights Action Centre, Mrs Megan Chapman, said that the organisation would institute legal action against the state government over the demolition.

She said that the ejection of the people from their homes was in violation of an agreement the state had with the World Bank in respect of a 200 million dollars Slums Development Project.

Chapman insisted that that the state government had failed to comply with the conditions under which the fund was released to it in 2006.

She said that the Ijora Badia community was listed in the project, and that the inhabitants of the area should not have been ejected without due process.