The enforcement of Governor Ambode’s strict orders on regulating public building constructions brought the hammer to fall on Sabo Market, Ikorodu for two days in February as the biggest market in the division came under lock and keys by the Lagos State Building Control Agency triggering off allegations of corruption by council chairmen, other officials, and market developers.
The sudden closure of Sabo Market on Thursday and Friday, February 23 & 24, 2014 on the orders of LSBCA prompted angry reactions by traders and other stakeholders, who accused Ikorodu council officials of financial improprieties in remittances to the state government after collecting huge sums of monies from developers as well as shop allocations to themselves.
Sources at Alausa told Oriwu Sun that the Lagos State Building Control Agency struck at Sabo to prevent a repeat of what happened in Lekki recently, where a three or four-storey building collapsed, prompting a litigation against the contractors who have been charged with man slaughter.
Oriwu Sun learnt that the buildings constructed in Sabo market in the past and present have no approved plans by the state government (Physical Planning Ministry); hence, the closure of the market.
Past chairmen of Ikorodu Local Government from the era of Alhaji Sherif Anipole to Wasiu Adesina, were alleged to have been interested only in the monies they collected from the contractors and the shops to be allocated to them and their councillors and not in due process of getting approved plan and ensuring fair deal for the end users, i.e traders.
A source in the Ministry of Physical Planning told Oriwu Sun that Governor Ambode had given a clear directive that all single or multi storey buildings in the state must have approvals to avoid the issue of collapsed building and tragedies in the state.
One of the contractors in Sabo Market told Oriwu Sun that all the single storey buildings recently erected in that market should undergo integrity tests to ensure safety of the public users of the buildings/shops.
Investigation by our correspondents revealed that when the council wants to erect buildings for shops, they take the contractor (developer) to the site, measure out the space and determine the number of shops to be built.
Then the contractor goes behind to bribe the chairman, then pay a certain huge sum to the council and allocate a number of shops to both the chairman and the councilors.
The developer comes to site and builds the shop. Suppose the space is for fifteen (15) shops at the ground floor fifteen (15) shops up, he works out the mathematics after deducting the free shops to council officials the cost of building the structure, then he fixes the price of each shop and pass the huge bill to the traders.
A source close to one of the developers estimated the average cost of these one storey shop buildings at N10million to construct but the developer ends up making two or three times the value as profit while nothing is paid to the state government for approvals or other fees.
Some traders who had been long in the market, hinted our correspondents that some of these chairmen/councillors retain the shops given to them free while others sell them out. Our correspondents also learnt that the council officials prefer to use non indigenes of Ikorodu as developers in order to cover their tracks since indigenous contractors will likely expose the shady deals involved in this business.
The Iya Oloja of Ikorodu division, Alhaja Taofeekat Allison washed her hands off the process of building and allocation of shops saying it was between the council/developers on one hand and the traders (see her full interview (box).
One stakeholder wondered why the councils now prefer to give jobs to non-indigenes and called on Governor Ambode to set up an inquiry to look into the Sabo market construction and allocations in order to sanitise the place.
Oriwu Sun correspondents visited the sole administrator Mr. Ogunleye on that Friday February 24 to react on these issues. His staff said he was not available and referred us to the council engineer who also was not available.
We phoned him (the engineer) to request for an audience and he cut off the line when we told him our mission to his office and he refused to pick further calls.
The Ministry of Physical Planning and Environment also could not answer our calls and the text message we sent to the commissioner on this matter.
Efforts to reach any official of the Lagos State Building Control Agency yielded no positive results.
Like the Iya Oloja said, this issue is between the two arms of government (state/local government) and the contractors and the traders have become the suffering grass.
A female trader wondered why the state agency will close the entire market for a problem the traders and the public did not cause.
An officer in the physical planning in the council confirmed that past chairmen did not bother to get building approvals nor payment of legal fees to the state. Pleading from different quarters compelled the state agency to reopen the market only after the council officials had agreed to comply with approval demands and payment of other fees due to the state. The building control agency warned that failure to comply with the agreement on a definite date will lead to indefinite closure of the entire market, not sparing any section since such partial closure will be abused.
The Sabo market was eventually reopened on Saturday February 25, 2017 after traders had suffered tremendous losses in time, energy, finances, emotional stress e.t.c