Officials of the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA) yesterday stormed the popular Alaba International Market in Ojo and demolished 17 Plazas which it claimed were ‘ distressed’.
Africa Today News, New York gathered that LASBCA officials who were escorted by well-armed taskforce officials, stormed the market early in the morning to demolish the affected buildings.
LASBCA’s bulldozer went to work immediate on the buildings marked last Friday for demolition in order to avert building collapse at the market.
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.
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.
There was no resistance from the traders as taskforce officials were well mobilised to deal with unruly behaviour.
LASBCA’s General Manager, Gbolahan Oki, had said the government would demolish the buildings before Monday.
Addressing newsmen on Friday, 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 vicinities 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. What they 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.
‘So, we had to call the taskforce 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 to 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. That is what is paramount to the government. We have given them more than enough notices to comply and we will do the right thing,’ Oki submitted.
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.