The Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has explained that the demolition of buildings in the state is aimed at rescuing the city from flood and other related disaster.
Sanwo-Olu warned that no building on the right of way would be spared since the city is already below sea level.
He stated this during a live media chat on economic hardship on TVC.
The governor stated that the government was not out to take off people’s buildings except those that violated the law of rights of way.
He reaffirmed that no building would be spared, including those built by the staff of the Lagos State government.
News360 Info reports that the Right of way is a legal right to pass over another person’s land or the right of certain traffic to go ahead of other traffic.
Sanwo-Olu further revealed that during the clean-up at Obalende and Ijora areas, several infrastructures, including bridges and rail lines, were protected against hibernating people who later turned to attack and rob innocent passersby of their possessions.
He said, “We went round to clean up the city. If you see what we took away from Ijora, Obalende and the rest of it. We have done massive rail infrastructure underneath that rail you see people in governed spaces. These are the kinds of things we see in terms of traffic robbery.
Some of them will just come out and rob people on Eko Bridge. Last year, under the bridge of Apongbon, there was a fire incidence that led the government to shut down the bridge for nine months.
No government will fold its arms and allow such to happen. For nine months, we killed the economic activities in the Apongbon under the bridge. For us to go back and clear it, it is for us to do it over and again. And for the people to know that the bridges needed to be protected. So that those structures can last a hundred and twenty years. Even we don’t have the money to build those kinds of bridges again.”
He also called on individuals to respect the rule of law.
“When you asked me to rate my four years in governance, I told you people are working on the river. The people say Come and see Sanwoolu o. They said This is river Lekki o, We were on boat o, etc. These are things that happen. People deliberately built on the right of way for drainage carnal.
Lagos is below the sea level. Those waters have to go and come back again. That is all we did. There are some officers of the government whose houses went down. They wrote to us and all that. But their houses have to go down.
We were not out to take anybody’s house down deliberately. If it’s only one room that we need to take from the four-bedroom flat because it was built on the right of way, we take it and leave the remaining three rooms for you. And you can reconstruct and come back to your remaining three rooms.
But, for those that were built on our lines, we have to take them to pay the way for the project to continue. We just need to rescue the city. If not, not only we will be doing this country a disservice. But it is really for all of us to understand that we are all cohabiting here and we need to jointly respect the rules of our cohabitation. That is what we are trying to do,” he added.
