By PAMELA EBOH, Awka

Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has described the demolition of some multi-billion naira properties belonging to Igbo people at Rockview Street, Ajao Estate, Lagos, as unlawful, wicked and atrocious.

The group in a statement issued on Monday and signed by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, lamented that the owners and residents of the property were not given due and necessary legal notification before the action was taken.

The statement partly reads: “The whole country, nay the whole world, watched in utter shock and disbelief, as bulldozers of the Lagos state government maliciously and mercilessly brought down several multi-billion naira fully built-up and occupied choice properties, located on Rockview street, Ajao Estate, Lagos apparently without due notice.

“It was a very pathetic scene to watch, particularly in a presumed constitutional democracy that Nigeria supposedly is.”

On the legal background and implications of the demolition exercise, HURIWA maintained that it is nearly impossible for the affected residents to have successfully settled on the Estate for upwards of a decade, without the clear and unambiguous approval of Lagos State Government.

The group insisted that owners of the property must have legitimately acquired them, passing through all the rigorous legal processes because Ajao Estate generally, and Rockview Street in particular, “is not a run-of-the-mill high-density settlement that accommodates all sorts of illegal and unapproved structures.”

It noted that the area is a well laid out low-density residential area occupied by enlightened lower and upper-middle class populace, who know the requirements of due process of the law themselves, or can readily afford the services of lawyers and other professionals in the Real Estate sector.

HURUWA further cited that the process that takes months and years in some cases, to accomplish, particularly in a metropolitan state like Lagos State and that humongous Consent Fees, Stamp Duties, Filing Fees, Neighborhood Improvement Charges and other sundry Fees, must have to be paid, before the Title Deed can be perfected or the Certificate of Occupancy, issued.

After enumerating the tedious processes and approvals from government authorities before building a property, it was baffling that during these processes, the Lagos state government did not remember that these buildings were built either too close to fuel dumps or their pipelines, saying that this was “absolutely incredible.”

Noting that the state government has the right to acquire any property only for public purpose under the Lands Use Act 2004, HURIWA said: “As far the ordinary eye can see, there is no urgent basis for government acquisition of the affected properties and in the unlikely event such a basis exists, adequate notice had obviously not been given as can clearly be seen from the viral video clip wherein, a distraught woman painfully lamented her inability to retrieve any of her properties, including vital documents.

“Despite the clearly weak and obvious afterthought of a defense being preferred by some Lagos State government officials regarding the close proximity of the affected properties to a fuel pipeline and the claim that the buildings were erected on FAAN’s property, it will be extremely difficult to convince any right-thinking person, that the whole exercise was not politically motivated, coming so closely after the very bitter and acrimonious as aforementioned.”

The group warned the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, to avoid the imminent floodgate of litigations that would soon be opened against the Lagos State government by the hapless victims by instructing his Attorney General to enter into immediate negotiations with the victims, whose only offense happened to be that they are of the Igbo ethnic stock, for payment of adequate compensations without delay.

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