17 BUSINESS PLAZAS DEMOLISHED IN ALABA INTERNATIONAL MARKET OJO …. LASBCA, says its distressed plazas
The Officials of the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA) on Sunday 18th June 2023 stormed the popular Alaba International Market, in Ojo and demolished 17 distressed Plazas.
LASBCA officials, escorted by well armed Taskforce officials stormed the market early in the morning to demolish the affected buildings.
LASBCA’s bulldozer went to work immediately on the buildings marked last Friday for demolition in order to avert building collapse at the market.
We must recall that on Friday, officials of the agency went to the market to mark the buildings for demolition after the government said it had issued several notices to the occupants of the structures to vacate and that the demolition has become necessary to avoid loss of life if it collapses.
Some of the shopping plazas demolished are: G80 Alaba Rago road, Good Season Shopping Complex, the building on 840 Ojo Igbede and the structure behind Oba Oseni plaza.
It could be recalled that LASBCA’s General Manager, Gbolahan Oki had said that the government would demolish the buildings before Monday.
Addressing newsmen Oki said LASBCA had been on top of the game telling owners of the affected properties to do the right thing.
“We have officers in those vicinity who have served them severally. Despite the facts that they were served, people don’t yield to the notices. We have been serving them notices since 2016 and when we came on board we served them too”.
Mr Oki pointed out that what the traders do whenever we go there is to send area boys to disrupt our services.
“About a month ago, we made a list of 349 distressed buildings. The properties marked are supposed to be on the list and due to the fact that they harass our staff, they are not captured on the list. They won’t allow our staff to do their jobs and that is why they are not on the list.
He continued that, “So, we had to call the task force to enforce what we are supposed to do and these notices have been served them since last year and apart from that, these properties have been served since 2016. If you look at 2016 till date, that is seven years and if you look at somebody who wants to be responsible in that environment, it is enough time for them want to do the right thing, seven years is enough to rehabilitate the buildings.
“We have taken the bull by the horns and all those distressed buildings are going to go between now and Monday and that is why we called on the taskforce to be our guardian angel to provide security to make sure that the properties are brought down to save lives.
The LASBCA Manager maintains that that is paramount to the government. We have given them more than enough notices to comply and we will do the right thing,” Oki stated.
Oki added that those distressed buildings were not supposed to be in existence, saying that government did not need to give human face to what would cause disaster to the state and the people.
“We are telling them to save their lives by moving away and if the buildings come down, they will blame government. We are not going to stop at the 17 distressed buildings, but we are moving to other localities, we have several buildings to be demolished, about 400,” he maintained.
Earlier, Some occupants and traders of the Alaba International Market expressed displeasure over the alleged three hours given to them to vacate some of the buildings.
Recall that Alaba market was a self-help development model market. The operators of the market were earlier ordered to vacate their former place of occupancy and directed to develop the space in Ojo area, which they eventually named Alaba International market, where they sell electronics and other wares.
There is no comment yet from the market leadership to get the perspective of the market leadership and operators concerning why the said delay in compliance to the directives of the Government and to determine if there was cordial process of issuing the notices or not…
But government should at all times realise that development of Infrastructural facilities to facilitate trade and commerce is part of an implicit role government plays and should not throw the people out without provision. While the the government is concerned with the demolition of the faulty structures, they should as well put plans in place to shelter the displaced in order to mitigate the hardship their displacement could cause and save the people from more economic shocks..
© Dolly Online News, 2023
