FESTAC residents make frantic efforts to avert FHA demolition squad visiting their homes and places of business.
By Emma Ogbuehi
Property owners and residents of FESTAC Town, Lagos, especially illegal squatters are living in fear over threats by the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) to continue with demolition of unapproved structures in the community.
FHA had on Sunday, November 28, embarked on massive demolition of houses and properties, in a move that took some homeowners in FESTAC Phase Two by surprise.
The exercise, residents said, came a day after an article announced that the FHA would soon begin mass demolition of buildings without approval in FESTAC Town. The FHA however insisted that it had issued several stop-work orders and demolition notices to encroachers who did not have requisite documents or building approvals, the last of which lapsed on September 13.
While some of the affected residents expressed shock that their houses were destroyed within a twinkling of an eye, others took to the social media to lament the development, decrying what they called government’s insensitivity.
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More shock came the way of remaining residents when the FHA vowed to continue with the demolition exercise. The Managing Director, Sen Gbenga Ashafa, who spoke through the FHA Executive Director, Project Implementation, Mr Chinonso Omoke, in a meeting with stakeholders at the FHA Zonal office, insisted that there was no going back on the exercise, arguing that it was in the public interest.
Ashafa said, “Though painful but inevitable, we will not fold our hands and cheer the distortion of our master plan under any guise, no matter how highly placed the defaulter might be. Individuals decided to obstruct the major access to 9th Avenue, by directly constructing on the road.
“We have started this sustained exercise of clearing them and negotiations on them are foreclosed. We have also observed that some other buildings in that part of FESTAC are already structurally challenged, so much that in places piling was required, ordinary raft foundations were put in place.”
The managing director stated that the agency would adopt all possible measures to avert building collapse and forestall any loss of life in FESTAC Town.
Rattled by the unyielding stance of the FHA, property owners are making last-ditch efforts to retrieve some items from their structures. Some are reconstructing their properties to pull them back from the roads. A visit by our correspondent to the 1st, 4,th and 7th Avenues, saw landlords dismantling some structures close to the roads and taking them inside. Some are dismantling the structures, entirely.
A property owner on 7th Avenue, who simply introduced himself as Mr. Fred, argued that he did not want what happened to occupants on 9th Avenue to befall him, hence, he was dismantling the drinking joint in front of his house. “It is better to err on the side of caution”, he said.
Emma Eze, who had a mini-mart on the space adjacent to his house on 4th Avenue, has also moved the business some metres backwards.
The Federal Housing Authority (FHA) has not given any date for the continuation of the demolition but the fear among property owners, is palpable.
