Demolition exercise: 80% of Lekki buildings have no approval - Lagos Commissioner

The Lagos State government recently initiated the demolition of illegal structures across the state to combat the issue of recurring flood.

In defense of the demolition of the houses by the Lagos State government, Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Dr Oluyinka Olumide, stated that 80 percent of the buildings in Ibeju Lekki have no approval.

Speaking to the press, Olumide said, “just last week Thursday and Friday, myself and the team were in the Ibeju Lekki and Epe axis and you would agree with me that anybody passing through that corridor would see a lot of estates marked. We went there, and I can tell you that from what we saw, over 80 per cent of them do not have approval.

“The procedure to get approval is first to get the planning information, as to what those areas have been zoned for. In this case, what we have is agricultural land, and people now go to their families to buy agricultural land. Of course, those lands would be sold because those families do not know the use such land would be put to.

“The next thing to do is the fence permit. If you missed the earlier information on not knowing the area zoning, at the point of getting the fence permit, you would be able to detect what the area is zoned for. After that, the layout permits a large expense of land follows.”

According to the commissioner, a layout permit cannot be obtained if it is not zoned for the purpose it was designed for or for the purpose it was being requested.

“So, you can see all these layers, but people still go ahead to start advertising. Some have even gone to the extent of displaying the sizes they want to sell. Imagine someone in the diaspora who wants to send money without any knowledge. Then, no approval is eventually gotten. Even if they pass the assignment and the survey to them, we would not grant the individual permit, because that area is not zoned for that purpose,'' Olumide stated.

The demolition has since caused an uproar as residents called on the federal government to intervene as the process has rendered many families homeless.

A video circulating on social media shows some residents in despair over the demolition, pleading with the government to stop the exercise, claiming they were not given prior notice.
In response, the Lagos State Commissioner for Environment, Tokunbo Wahab, clarified that the government issued the residents of Mende Villa Estate had been issued two demolition notices in 2021 and 2023.

Wahab, speaking on Arise TV’s Morning Show on Sunday, May 5, 2024, insisted that the government had provided prior warnings and marked the properties slated for demolition before the exercise.

He mentioned that contravention notices had been served in 2021 to properties encroaching on the setback of the System One drainage channel in Mende Villa, Maryland, during his predecessor’s tenure.