AS worries continue to heighten among homeowners that would soon lose their houses to demolition squad, concerns raging from their fate over the land, alternate residential plan, the home-insurance policy they have religiously kept to for the past 30 years and others are some of the questions the Lagos State Government may have to answer before leveling the 50 defective buildings in Jakande Estate, located within Ejigbo Local Development Council Area, Lagos.
The affected homeowners, though already accepted the planned demolition, said it would be wrong for their treasured homes to be brought down without an extensive plans to resettlement them. Also top on their minds is who will be the beneficiaries should the state decides to rebuild those houses? They therefore urged the state government to be transparent in the entire process.
Their posers might have led to a stakeholders’ meeting held last week between them and the government, ostensibly to assuage their fears.
Following an integrity test conducted on the homes, the state government had said 50 of those houses were not habitat and should be demolished. The test was carried out after the collapse of a two-storey building in the estate, was said to be necessary in order to ascertain the structural fit or otherwise of the buildings within the estate.
Since the collapsed many intrigues had played up over the way forward. While some have appealed to the state to come to their aid, others, due to pecuniary interest, had attempted to scuttle the process of certifying the status of the buildings.
Now, the situation has gone beyond speculations, as government’s officials last week confirmed the development. At the moment, plans are being fine-tuned towards executing the demolition exercise.
The affected buildings, which are of different house types - two and three storey buildings, were said to have failed the integrity test conducted on them by the Lagos State Raw Materials Testing Agency (LSRMTA).
In a bid to give the planned demolition a human face, the residents of the estate have been meeting with the state government.
In one of the stakeholders’ meeting organized by the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, LASEMA, its General Manager, Dr. Femi Oke-Osayintolu, said the demolition became necessary in order to safe lives and properties. The forum had in attendance representatives of all the affected stakeholders.
These included the Lagos Building and Investment Corporation (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).
Others at the meeting were the Jakande Estate Association, officials of the Ejigbo Local Council Development Area, LCDA; Ministries of Housing, Environment, among others.
Among the objectives of the meeting were: To develop modalities on the best way that the demolition exercise would be executed and to ensure that no disaster occurs in the course of the exercise. Also, to ensure that the exercise does not affect other buildings not included in the houses to be brought down in the course of demolition, as well as looking at ways to settle people to be affected by the exercise.
According to Oke-Osanyintolu, the fact is that the buildings had failed integrity test and needed to be demolished to avert disaster, noting that “they were no longer fit for habitation and rehabilitation, but to be removed”.
Representatives of affected residents in the area were made to see reason why the buildings would have to be demolished for the safety of their occupants and to avert loss of lives.
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, Mr. Kehinde Bamigbetan, was quoted as saying that “the integrity test is a scientific process to ascertain the structural integrity of buildings and that affected buildings would have to be demolished to avert disaster and for the safety of the people”.
He said that one of the issues at stake was whether there are back up for the affected people, that is where the people would stay after the demolition, adding that the issue of relocation 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, then they must be compensated, saying that these were the issues that needed to be looked at.
However, one of the resident who spoke with The Guardian under the condition of anonymity, said his concern is how faithful would government be to its assurances to the victims?
“With Governor Babatunde Fashola at the helm of affairs in Lagos, we don’t have problem. Reason is that from experience of happenings in our society, government officials are usually clogs in the wheel of progress of any good plan. With the propose compensation and possible rehabilitation, we hope it would not be man-no man affair?”
The collapse of the two-storey building in November 2012, led the state government to conduct integrity test on several buildings in the estate built by former Executive Governor of Lagos State in the Second Republic, Alhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande, almost 30 years ago, through the Lagos Building Investment Corporation, LBIC, while the result of the test showed that 50 buildings were defective and needed to be demolished, in the estate.
Recently, the Commissioner for Housing, Mr. Bosun Jeje, at a parley with Journalists, hinted that government is to provide database for its housing estates in the metropolis, with the aim of knowing their structural strength, and to carry out their continuous maintenance.
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