At almost every Town Hall Meeting during the Fashola and Ambode’s regimes, the cry for the construction of Igbe Road in Ikorodu Division was loud. It was loudest during the last five meetings of Ambode’s government, especially the one held at Ikorodu Town Hall in 2016. Igbe road construction was in the front burner.
However, most of the people yearning for this road did not remember, or rather, failed to acknowledge the price to be paid for this project. They did not weigh the collateral damages to be incurred for the success of the project until last December. Few days to the 2017 Christmas, the residents said they got a seven day ultimatum to vacate their residences for construction work to commence on the Ebute, Igbogbo, Igbe road axis.
Some said government had assured the affected house owners and their occupants that they would be duly compensated before work starts while others said the government set aside this promise and rolled out bulldozers, accompanied by security forces, to demolish their properties. They labelled it a Greek Christmas gift and a wicked one at that.
According to some of the residents, who spoke with Oriwu Sun, a week demolition notice was given before the enforcement, but no compensation had been paid up till the time of demolition. Many of them commended the development that was about taking place in the town but condemned the demolition on the ground that compensation was supposed to have been paid earlier on before the demolition takes place. They expressed fear and doubt about the payment of compensation, noting that most of them did not have Certificate of Occupancy (C of O), which they believe is the number one required document for a compensation in this kind of situation.
According to Mr Kazeem Jokosanya, whose house was also demolished, the proposed road project is a good development but the demolition notice was too short for anyone to prepare his or her resettlement. He prays the State Government compensates them as soon as possible to lessen their pain and the hardship the demolition has caused.
Another resident, who did not want her name in print, claimed that they were only given seven days to bring their documents to the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development in Alausa Ikeja, but before the expiration of the seven day notice, demolition started. This, she condemned, and called for adequate compensation.
By the time Oriwu Sun got to Adeboruwa Palace, which is also located along the axis, three men were seen on seats with tables in front, taking note or registering property owners’ names and the type of their properties that were demolished. They told Oriwu Sun Publisher, Chief Monzor Olowosago, who led a team of reporters on the first visit to the scent of the demolition on Thursday, December 14, 2014, that all the houses being demolished had been registered in order to achieve their due compensation. Meanwhile, it was gathered that almost half of the Adeboruwa palace was marked for demolition, but for the purpose of some traditional rites and festivals, among other things, the demolition would be enforced in January.
This was later confirmed by HRM Oba Semiudeen Kasali Orimadegun (Emugoriade1), Adeboruwa of Igbogbo.
Oba Kasali, however, allayed the fear and doubt about payment of compensation as he revealed that the State Government had given them assurance that all affected property owners would be duly compensated. He said the traditional institution is working relentlessly to ensure timely payment and see that no one is short changed.
Oba Kasali also commended his people for their understanding and sacrifice, which he said were for better tomorrow. He noted that a lot of good development is coming along with the road project and believes this would spring up economic activities of Igbogbo and its environs. The Monarch also appreciated Governor Akinwunmi Ambode for his love for the people of Igbogbo, Ikorodu division and Lagos State as a whole. He urged everyone to keep supporting Governor the present administration in order to enjoy more dividends of democracy.
However, when the demolition started, it began from the properties along Ebute-Igbogbo, where the four-lane from Ebute stopped a little distance from the Igbogbo road cemetery, the bulldozers, with jaws like that of a demon and the smile of a crocodile, began to enforce what could be termed as ‘the dawn of a developmental journey’.
It is obvious that when stakeholders/residents in Lagos State answered in the affirmative when Ambode reportedly asked them if they were prepared to make personal and collective sacrifices for the various road projects they demanded, little did they know the consequence of their answer. Igbogbo people now know better. With ferocity, bulldozers belonging to Hitech, the road construction company handling the project, swung into action, sparing no affected structure along the designated path for the proposed road project. Churches, mosques, schools, petrol stations, residential houses, government establishments and even the Oba’s palace were not spared. The span of the road is about 80 – 100ft wide and the length or distance is said to be about nine kilometers.
For days, people wept and gnashed their teeth as they watched helplessly as their houses, built over years with hard earned money and sweat, being crumbled like paper within minutes. All the years of labour, of occupation of pride as house owners vanished within a twinkle of an eye. The outcry, passion and emotion of the residents meant nothing to the caterpillars and other earth moving equipment deployed for this operation. Distraught locals could not hold back the bulldozers. They could not stop the hands of the machines as they viciously groaned along the streets, grilled the ground and shook the environment.
Heaps upon heaps of broken blocks, tiles, stones, iron rods, battered properties, etc., littered a wide and long stretch of the intended road. The debris was as massive as the destruction. It was like a war zone in the North East of Nigeria or Middle East or Afghanistan. Many could not comprehend this tragedy nor fathom the disastrous consequences they faced. All of a sudden, people who lived in absolute comfort and security became refugees, open to be scorned by their enemies and vulnerable to many.
They ran helter-skelter as the unstoppable machines tore apart structures, pulling down roofs, blasting fences and walls, excavating hard surfaces, destroying septic tanks, and mangling churches, mosques and school buildings without look backing. The only structures that have been temporarily given a few extra day holiday are the Igbogbo cemetery walls, the palace of Oba of Igbogbo, the post office and the popular Igbogbo stadium, which northern fences are likely to be pulled down. We learnt that these places had been given till January 2018 to shift grounds. Speculations are that the entire palace of the Oba may move out eventually. The bulldozers did not spare the popular Club 24 nor a shrine near the Oba’s palace, not afraid of the deities worshiped there. The monstrous bulldozer blades tore through all of these places.
For miles, Igbogbo lay desolate, shattered, destroyed and subdued. The town had paid the supreme price of development, which many never envisaged. Over 400 houses had been destroyed. As these reporters drove past a once lively and built up town, the place was solemn like a grave yard. People came out in trickles to search for any retrievable items in the rubbles, such as whole blocks for them to erect butcher’s huts and shanties in their refugee camp. Many had gone to squat with friends, relations, associates or kinsmen. Oreyo Grammar School, whose fences may also become a casualty, stood out in that lonely stretch of road filled with dust and earth/laterites.
In hushed tones, some residents clustered in surviving buildings along the stretch of road to strategise on the way to go since their future, perhaps businesses and lives, had been shattered. No compensation from government was yet in sight; no relief materials from donor agencies were forthcoming nor any help or hope from anyone else. The situation seemed hopeless to many just like Nigerians in the North Eastern States had witnessed in the past years. The only difference here is that no bullets or bombs are seen flying in all corners nor anyone being killed nor is there an internally displaced persons’ camp as in Borno, Yobe & Adamawa States.
IGBE ROAD
As at Thursday January 4, 2018, when another team of reporters from Oriwu Sun drove through the long stretch of road to Igbe/Oreyo junction, it was certain that it would take weeks to clear the mountains of debris littering the road before actual construction work could start. Curiously, these writers wondered what happened to the main Igbe road to Oreyo Grammar School junction from Oriwu College, which represents the center of the agitation for the construction of this road. We tried to drive through this road to join Igbogbo to Oriwu College road but could not pass through because many sections are now overgrown with bushes while portions had caved in and are filled with waters even in the peak of the harmattan dry weather.
The once tarred road, very wide and linking Igbogbo/Ikorodu with Ewu-Elepe to Ijede, has been a nightmare for several years. The residents along this formerly vibrant road are lamenting and crying foul today. Their protest isn’t for the same reason residents living along Bola Ahmed Tinubu Way, where the massive demolitions for the new highway took place, are crying. Their outburst is over an apparent sidelining. These are the people, who allegedly cried for Igbe Road reconstruction. Every one of them anticipated that the new road would pass through that place to revive the strategic road. Alas, they were cut off from the scheme for reasons best known to the Government.
The new road bypassed them, leaving the long abandoned road still in distress.
Who knows what the entire Igbogbo people would be thinking in their minds today? Would they have wished otherwise in their cry for Igbe road? Are they regretting the big price they are paying today for this road project? Will the government really compensate the victims adequately or merely give them a token since the house owners will no more bargain from a position of strength? Is government ready to allocate a new layout for the affected house/building owners to resettle? And at what cost? And how soon?
There are many questions the affected Igbogbo residents are asking. No immediate responses are coming. The only reply they are getting is the sound of continuous construction machines still tearing the earth, hungry to destroy more structures and baring their ugly arms and blades to scoop out and erase anything standing on their way. This is the big price every location seeking development must pay. Igbogbo has done so.
As of the time of filing this report, people who have their loved ones buried in those affected buildings have continued to exhume their remains to another locations.