3 weeks ago
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By Olasunkanmi Akoni
The Lagos State Government has issued a two-week ultimatum to spot developers and owners astatine the Trade Fair Complex, Ojo, to get due gathering approvals and regularise their operations successful enactment with existing carnal readying regulations.
This directive follows the partial demolition of unapproved structures astatine the analyzable a fewer weeks ago. The authorities said the workout targeted lone buildings erected without indispensable approvals from applicable authorities.
Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Dr. Oluyinka Olumide, announced the ultimatum connected Thursday portion reacting to caller comments by Labour Party’s 2023 statesmanlike candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, and others who accused the authorities authorities of bias successful its demolition exercise.
Olumide said the state’s enactment was successful enactment with ineligible provisions and planetary champion practices, stressing that the ultimatum was an accidental for developers to close irregularities earlier enforcement resumes.
“Over time, the Trade Fair Complex has degenerated into an enclave of haphazard and unsafe structures, posing sedate risks to nationalist information and exigency response,” Olumide said.
He explained that the enforcement aligns with Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG 11) and Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s T.H.E.M.E.S+ Agenda, which prioritise inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable cities.
Citing the Nigerian Urban and Regional Planning Act (1992) and the Lagos State Urban and Regional Planning and Development Law (2019), Olumide said the authorities is constitutionally empowered to modulate carnal improvement wrong its territory — including national lands not utilized for exclusive national purposes specified arsenic subject bases.
“For clarity, onshore ownership and rubric are not successful contention astatine the Trade Fair Complex. The ongoing enforcement focuses solely connected the support presumption of carnal developments. Every operation successful Lagos State indispensable person a valid readying licence from the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development,” helium stated.
The commissioner stressed that aft the two-week window, the government—through the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA)—would resume demolition of non-compliant structures wrong the complex.
He besides dismissed insinuations of governmental oregon taste bias, describing specified claims arsenic “populist and ill-motivated.”
“The attraction of the Lagos State Government has been drawn to attempts by definite governmental actors, peculiarly of South-East extraction, to misrepresent facts and discredit the ongoing enforcement. These actions purpose astatine scoring inexpensive governmental points alternatively than advancing nationalist safety,” helium said.
Olumide highlighted that akin demolition and municipality renewal exercises had been carried retired successful respective parts of Lagos, including Pelewura Market, Bombata Market, Ilasan Housing Estate, Otumara, Alaba Rago, and Oluwole Market, each involving divers taste groups.
He besides noted that different states successful the South-East—such arsenic Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, and Imo—have conducted comparable exercises without taste tension.
“It is truthful disingenuous and divisive for anyone to edifice to taste sensationalism whenever enforcement involves structures owned oregon occupied by individuals of Igbo extraction,” Olumide warned.
He reaffirmed the Sanwo-Olu administration’s committedness to ensuring a safe, well-planned, and sustainable Lagos, guided strictly by the instrumentality and devoid of governmental oregon taste bias.
The station Trade Fair: Lagos Govt gives developers 2 weeks to get gathering approvals appeared archetypal connected Vanguard News.
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