Surveyor seeks justice as Lagos demolishes property

An estate surveyor, Abimbola Onisabi, has accused officials of the Lagos State Building Control Agency of demolishing two buildings on Sasegbon Street at the GRA, Ikeja, Lagos State without prior notice.

Speaking to PUNCH Metro on Saturday, Onisabi said the officials on Friday forcefully gained entry into the property which has four bungalows thereby demolishing two out of them in the process.

He added that the scale of demolition involved removal of gates and roof and carting them away in a private lorry with registration no KJA 256 XR.

He said, “At about 5.30 pm, Friday, September 27, men of the Lagos State Building Control Agency came to demolish four buildings at the GRA Ikeja. The bungalows are respectively numbered 14A, 14B, 16A and 16B. While the first two buildings were completely demolished, the other two were partially demolished.
“It is worthy of note that no construction was going on the premises nor was any renovation work being carried out. The buildings are just the old but well-maintained types of bungalows common in the neighbourhood. They were fully occupied by tenants.”

Onisabi stated that the buildings were the subject of a development lease to Messers Owodunni & Sons Motors Limited.

The lease, according to him, was for 75 years and currently has 37 years of unexpired term.
He further stated that there had been well-documented attempts since last year by some people to repossess the property without regard to the unexpired tenure of the development lease.

He said, “The move was resisted and we advised them to seek legal redress. It seems that this did not go down well with them. It is believed that the forceful entry and destruction of the property by LASBCA must have been at the behest of the family to repossess the property illegally.

“The recent notices served on the property by LASBCA requesting certain planning information to which a representative of Owodunni & Sons quickly responded, must have been done to put a seeming legal cover-up for the eventual demolition of the property targeted at assisting the contending party repossess the property illegally.”
He said it was against the letters and spirit of the constitution in a democratic society to dispossess another person of their property in the absence of any judicial proceeding and eventual judgement of a court of competent jurisdiction.

A tenant, Ayodeji Ojesanmi, who has an office space in one of the demolished structures, said he got to know of the incident while away from the office.

According to him, the exercise was carried out while staff members were still in the building.

He said, “I got a call from the office now that the office walls have been demolished and demolition is ongoing. I was already heading to the office from Ojuelegba where I went to purchase decoration materials for our Independence Day celebration at the office.
“On getting to the office, I found people from the LASBCA destroying our office building while our staff members were still inside the premises. They all ran out for their lives because the men from the Nigeria Police were also around.”

He however lamented that some of their properties were stolen by hoodlums during the demolition.

The spokesperson for LASBCA, Muyiwa Adu, said the demolition was carried out as a result of defect on the property, adding that a prior notice was served.

He said, “We don’t demolish without prior notice, we would have given them at least six months. If a property has a defect, no one will take an explanation for that and we don’t want any collapse in Lagos State.”

Onisabi however refuted claims that the building had a defect adding that the pattern of demolition was way beyond structural defect.

He said, “The building is a bungalow and did not have a defect. The notice was a request for a building plan and building permit.  If such demolition is being carried out, do they carry the roof and gates away? The purpose is to dispossess the people who are there so that they won’t be able to operate. It was like a war. When I got to the place that day, some of the officials said it was beyond the planning. Saying they thought there was a dispute on the property.”