Landlords Kick As Lagos Govt Set To Demolish Houses For Railway Project Around Agbado Station

ILESANMI OLUKEMI MOTUNRAYO

Properties and businesses worth billions of naira are going to be lost in order to give way for the construction of Agbado Station and associated infrastructures in the Lagos Rail Mass Transit Red Line Project.

The Red Line is a 37km North-South railroad project which has the capacity to move more than one million passengers daily when completed.

The construction of Agbado Station and associated infrastructures are being undertaken for the Lagos State Government by Lagos State Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA) in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Transportation, Nigeria Railway Corporation, while the Ogun State Ministry of Transportation is said to be carried along on the project.

To do this project, a lot of properties and businesses along the corridor of Agbado-Ijoko Road must give way. This was contained in a letter sent to landlords of the affected houses by LAMATA on 8 November 2021.

“In order to establish the Right-of-Way (RoW) for the project, houses and businesses will be affected. Therefore, this letter serves as a notice to inform you that your property is likely to be acquired in the overriding public interest,” the LAMATA letter reads.

Though LAMATA informed the property owners that it has engaged professional services of a reputable Environmental and Social Safeguard (ESS) Consultant (Messrs Global Impact Environmental Consulting Limited) to prepare and implement a Resettlement Action Plan which will adequately compensate All Project Parties (PAPs), landlords in the area are kicking, saying encroachment into their properties by the government is getting too much with nothing to show for it.

The landlords alleged that when the government was constructing the Lagos – Ibadan railway, most of their houses were affected in the name of Right-of-Way, but they were not adequately compensated as agreed considering the huge losses they suffered.

One of the landlords, Mr Johnson lamented that when the whole Agbado-Ijoko axis was still a virgin and bushy area, no government thought of doing any project of public interest, but when people took the risk to make the place inhabitable, it is now they believe the government can come around to forcefully acquire and demolish houses which many toiled and laboured to build.

“This is unfortunate. I am wondering where the government wants us to go. This is all I can lay my hands on after many years of service as a civil servant, and one government is now telling me to leave the house, to where?

“Nobody talks to us except the letter we just received that our houses have been marked for demolition. This is so sad. It is unacceptable,” Johnson lamented.

Other landlords and landladies who spoke on the incident called on the government to halt the proposed demolition of their properties. According to them, if the demolition is allowed to be carried out, it would leave them homeless with untold hardship.