4th January, 2013
Nigeria’s Lagos State Government has concluded plans to demolish 50 houses at the Jakande Estate, Ejigbo, a suburb of the commercial capital of Nigeria.
The 50 houses, (two and three storey buildings) failed the integrity test conducted on them by the Lagos State Raw Materials Testing Agency after a two-storey building collapsed in the estate in November 2012, killing two sisters.
The collapse of the two-storey building led the state government to conduct integrity test on several buildings in the estate built by ex-governor Lateef Jakande 30 years ago, through the Lagos Building Investment Corporation, LBIC. The result of the test showed that 50 buildings were defective and needed to be demolished.
A stakeholder’s meeting organised by the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, LASEMA and presided over by its General Manager, Dr. Femi Oke-Osayintolu, was held at the Lagos State Security Command on Thursday.
At the meeting were representatives of the LBIC, Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency, LASEPA; Lagos State Building Control Agency, LASBCA; Lagos State Raw Materials Testing Agency; Office of the Public Defender, OPD, LASEMA, Jakande Estate Association; officials of the Ejigbo Local Council Development Area, LCDA; Ministries of Housing, Environment, among others.
The meeting was organised to harmonise modalities on the demolition of the affected buildings in order to avert disaster or any possible collapse of buildings in the estate as well as look at ways to ameliorate the plight of people to be affected by the demolition.
At the meeting, Oke-Osanyintolu said the buildings had failed integrity test and needed to be demolished to avert disaster.
Representatives of affected residents in the area were made to see reason why the buildings would have to be demolished.
Modalities for compensation and resettlement were then discussed by the parties involved and it was agreed that another stakeholder’s meeting be fixed for Monday and Thursday to fine-tune final arrangement.
Chairman, Ejigbo LCDA, Kehinde Bamigbetan told P.M.NEWS that the issue of relocation of affected residents needed to be put at the front burner as to how the cost of such would be borne.
Bamigbetan added that the issue of insurance needed to be looked at, saying that since residents of the affected buildings pay certain amount of money on yearly basis as insurance, they must be compensated.
Although most of the affected families have packed out of the building marked for demolition, some have stayed behind, claiming that they don’t have any place to go.
—Kazeem Ugbodaga