With the 4th closure of Ayangbure Market, a,k,a Sabo Market in Ikorodu within one year, and innocent traders and patronisers of that center in great agony and losses as a result of greed and self-aggrandizement of some council officials, past and present, the time has come for a decisive action by Governor Ambode and the Lagos state government to halt this unfortunate trend.
Without mincing words, the closure of this celebrated market, the biggest in Ikorodu division, in February this year for about three days was no fault of the traders therein nor those who come to patronize them. Neither was it their fault that the market was again shut down on Thursday, April 6, 2017 by the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LABCA).
Like in previous shutdowns of the market, traders were taken unawares and those selling perishable goods and those, who had placed order, or made important bookings, were dismayed by the development as they suffered huge financial and emotional losses.
State government sources have corroborated the allegation of traders, who spoke with Oriwu Sun, that the greed of past chairmen and councilors of the local government, from Anipole regime down to the current one and the failure of the council officials to follow due process in getting approval plans for the market buildings at Sabo as well as the hasty construction of the structures there, which are bound to fail integrity tests, are the issues that led to the repeated closure of the market.
One starts wondering how these accused chairmen and their co-travellers, who have their own personal houses and know that it is mandatory to get approval plans for structures in the state, would ignore obtaining same for a public building such as market shops. But because of greed, these officials are said to skip approvals and hastily award contracts to non-indigenous contractors to cover their tracks, and proceeded with the shoddy work knowing that their tenures in office are usually short.
These council officials are said to have collected lobbying fees or pre-contract gratification which is their usual habit. When the job is given to the builder, usually a non-indigene, the contractor reserves two shops free for the chairman and one for each of the councilors.
A certified construction Engineer told Oriwu Sun that each of the single storey market blocks costs no more than N6million. The building for the ground and upper floors may have up to twenty (20) shops. The contractor then sells out the shops at the rate of N1.4million for the ground floor shops and N1million each for the upper floor shops. The profit from each block is obviously huge and attractive for both the contractor and the council officials; yet, the local government officials will not bother to get approval plans in order not to subject the buildings to integrity tests.
Because Governor Ambode believes in due process and in preserving the lives of Lagosians, officials of the Ministry of Physical Planning, through the Lagos State Building Control Agency, would not wait for a tragedy to happen in Sabo market before they act.
They did not want to have a repeat of the collapse of a three storey building in Lekki the previous year, before taking action. They said that the Sabo market structures have no approval plans and failed integrity tests. After the February 2017 closure of the market for three (3) days, they reportedly gave the council officials two weeks to rectify the anomalies but we learnt that this was not complied with because the officials in question are no longer in office.
The findings of the officials of the Physical Planning and the Building Control Agency, early this year, remained valid. These include the fact that the shop buildings were madly rushed, such that each was completed in less than one month without approvals and without independent engineering tests to certify their fitness. A certified Engineer in the Ministry told Oriwu Sun in confidence that these buildings will not last beyond few years before they collapse because the contractors simply demolished the old structures and without proper structural engineering works on the foundation, the new storey buildings were erected within a short period.
An official of the Physical Planning Ministry told Oriwu Sun that they had approached the past local government chairman and the present Sole Administrator for both to come forward and follow the due process but that they refused to obey.
We learnt that the council officials pleaded with the Ministry officials to waive the payments involved in approvals since they (the council) are also part of the government, and the buildings concerned are government property. The ministry officials turned down the plea and instead, told the local government officials to place such a request in writing to the Governor, who is the only one that can grant such a waiver. The council official had met a dead end and thereby, went underground.
A market source told Oriwu Sun that if a contractor spends about N3million to bribe officials and spends another N5million to build a storey building and makes about N25million to N30 million from sales of the shops, what then is preventing these actors from paying government approved fees (dues) if not greed and crass corruption?
Now, the people suffering are the innocent traders, who are not part of the deals involved. The traders and the general public are now the causalities of the monies that corruptly changed hands. They will also be the victims if tomorrow, these structures collapse because they failed integrity tests.
The people, who collected all the monies and free shops have vamoosed, leaving the traders and their patrons/masses to suffer.
Traders told Oriwu Sun that when they met the incumbent Sole Administrator of Ikorodu Local Government, Mr. Gbolahan Ogunleye, he had no solution to offer.
Already, the state government had made it clear that unless urgent measures are taken to redress the wrongs, the market will remain locked up indefinitely. As at the time of filing this report, the market had been shut down for over a week, prompting people to appeal for Governor Ambode’s intervention.
We join these appeals for Ambode to set up a probe into these burning issues. That is the only way to compel past officials of the council to account for their stewardship and also state their contribution in this ugly and unfortunate market issue.
Enough is enough.