200 Occupants Of Distressed Buildings Evicted By Lagos Govt

At least 200 occupants of three distressed buildings in Mushin Local Government area of Lagos state were weekend evicted by the state government.

The government has also continued the demolition of one of the three buildings; a four-storey, located on 34 Adeyemi Street. The two remaining buildings awaiting demolition are a two-storey and a shopping complex located on 32 and 33 Adeyemi Street respectively.

The evicted occupants while lamenting the government’s action alleged that they paid N100,000 to an unnamed official of the Lagos State Building Control Agency, LASBCA, to allow them remain in the distressed buildings for another year before demolition.

Some of the buildings marked for demolition, it was gathered had been erected over 22 years ago and were never renovated, but the landlords kept collecting rents worth over N200,000 each annually.

Apart from the distressed buildings, five other buildings were also marked for demolition for allegedly contravening approvals among others. Sources say they may be demolished in a matter of days.

General Manager of LASBCA, Mrs. Abimbola Animashaun-Odunayo, while reacting on the development, said, “The occupants were evicted because the buildings are unsafe for habitation. They have obvious cracks and can collapse any moment. This was the reason for government action. They are dangerous for habitation and if they collapsed today, about 200 occupants of the houses will suffer severe injury. We have to be proactive to ensure that buildings especially distressed ones do not collapse on the occupants.

“To avoid loss of lives, a new slogan has been adopted; ‘kill the house, before it kills us’. We have issued the landlords of the affected buildings notices thrice directing their tenants to vacate the property. But they refused.”

On the alleged bribery, she said: “I believe they made such allegation because they were upset. They believe that if they say that we can pardon them. Earlier, they appealed for a week extension, but we turned it down. We are all human beings. We have seen a lot of collapsed buildings and we have seen the number of causalities that died as buildings caved in. Why will anyone collect money from someone when we know that such building can collapse any moment? We have conscience.