Since the popular Sabo market in Ikorodu fell under the hammers and blade of unknown soldiers/persons and unknown bulldozers in May 2017, concerned citizens have not stopped ruminating over the circumstances, which led to the night demolition of over 600 shops in one night.
Having a hindsight, one can recall that Sabo’s ordeal began under the regime of Alhaji Sherif Anipole, when trouble broke out between the Executive arm and the Councilors in Ikorodu local government over this important market also known as Ayangbure market.
Both arms of government agreed on the need to sanitize the market, which was experiencing not only decay in infrastructure but corrupt tendencies. The regime officers agreed on the need to give the market a facelift and reached a ten point recommendation on the way forward.
But it seemed that the primary interest of both executives and the Councilors was only the redevelopment of the market stalls (shops), which will fetch revenue into their pockets. From Anipole’s administration down the line the focus was on redeployment of the market and the fraud involved.
Among the developers, whose names have been prominent in the market building construction are Ezeburubu & Co, M. O.S Construction and Capt. Ogunneye’s Co. who handled the new generation of market buildings in Sabo.
This writer has had close contacts with the Ikorodu council for several years, having served as a supervisory councilor in that local government for a few years. Therefore, I knew that the agreement between the council and market associations contains such terms as (a) that the old allotee shall pay an amount for reconstruction of shops where it is imperative (b) that the constructor shall provide a temporary accommodation for such old allotee while the reconstruction work is going on (c) that after the reconstruction, the allotee gets back his/her shop(s).
The question is, what should be the benefit of such a reconstruction work (redevelopment) to the council and to the traders (the allotees) and the public in general?
It is an unwritten agreement that a contractor, who builds 200 shops in that market, ought to give the council 30 percent of the proceeds of the construction.
If, therefore, one hundred old allotees paid (as claimed) the sum of N600,000 (six hundred thousand naira) each, currently for the reconstruction of each shop; the total amount generated by each contractor for 100 (hundred) shops will be N60million. However, the attraction of the redevelopment project involves single storey buildings as against ground shop built before. This means that for every 100 shops down, there are 100 shops upstairs. Hence, the contractor will now charge differentially for the remaining 100 shops each of which will be sold out at the rate of one million, two hundred thousand naira (N1.2million) to new allottees. These will generate one hundred and twenty million naira (N120million) from the 200 rebuilt shops, the sum of N180million is thus generated. If the 30percent of this amount is paid to the local government coffers, it will amount to N54million.
Ikorodu people are, therefore, expected to ask how much premium was paid by each contractor to the council, at what time was the money paid and to whom was it paid.
Again, if such huge amounts were generated from the redevelopment, was any amount paid to the state government coffers for approved building plans and integrity tests?
The legal officers of the council should ask and find out how many such market construction redevelopment agreements were signed by the Anipole and Wasiu Adeshina administrations and also establish how much accruals from these agreements went into the coffers of the council. They should equally find out how many shops why built by each contractor and how many of those shops were allocated to the past chairmen and councilors free of charge.
We may be surprised to know that each of the three contractors mentioned earlier built more than 250 shops. So let the reader calculate how much each of these contractors could have raked in and how much would have been paid into the council treasury if the 30 percent was paid.
Already, grapevine is buzzing that it was the Adesina’s regime that allocated the demolished shops for redevelopment.
It is alleged that the traders had wanted to rebuild each shop at between N300,000 and 400,000 using a contractor they had agreed with. But it is said that Adesina and his men insisted on using a contractor, who charged N600,000 per shop. This led to the traders going to court to get an injunction to halt any imposition of a contractor or demolition of their shops.
It is alleged that the regimes from Adesina and after, in desperation, colluded with contractors officials of Physical Planning in the council to demolish the market in May 2017. People are now asking if Ikorodu would be silent as it sleeps and bleeds and if the state government would not beam its search light on Sabo to find out what is happening there? Is it business as usual or is it a family affair as our politicians would say?