Residents of Jakande Ilasan Estate on Wednesday embarked on a peaceful protest, urging President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to intervene in the ongoing demolition of their buildings by the Lagos State government.
In addition, the residents, who staged the protest at the site of the demolished structures, carrying placards with different inscriptions, also called on Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to direct the operatives of the Task Force to release those arrested while ensuring adequate medical care for others receiving treatment in the hospital from gunshot wounds.
Officials of the State Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development, assisted by men of the Task Force, had demolished several buildings and shanties in the Estate in the operation that commenced on Sunday.
The spokesman of the group, Andrew Oretan, made these appeals, stating that residents who were evicted from Maroko in 1990 had been traumatized by officials of the state government, expressing readiness of the affected residents “for dialogue to resolve the matter.”
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Oretan explained that they were not against the proposed coastal road by the state government in the area but declared that the step taken through the forceful ejection was wrong and not civil.
Also speaking, President of the Landlord Association in the area, Prince Seyi Orioye, lamented that over 10,000 residents were affected by the demolition exercise.
He recalled that the affected residents had Allocation Letters from the government when they relocated them from Maroko 34 years ago without any development from the government in the Estate.
Orioye insisted that they were law-abiding citizens of the country and not illegal occupants of the place and should not be sent away by anybody, even as he wondered why people were being molested under the current economic hardship in the land.
This was just as he noted that the coastal road does not in any way affect those living in the Estate.
Mr. Benson Oketola, one of the elders in the Estate, said that they still have documents with which they purchased lands in Maroko from the Chieftaincy family.
He recalled that they were only given seven days’ notice to quit Maroko in 1990 during the administration of Governor Raji Rasaki with no compensation to anyone.
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