Lagos Issues Deadline To Squatters Under Ijora, Blue Line Bridges To Vacate
Taiwo Ayandeyi
The Lagos State Government on Sunday gave a five days quit notice to different squatters under the Ijora Causeway bridge and Lagos Blue rail Line over head bridge in Ijora to remove all their shanties for constituting a danger to the Lagos Blue Line corridor or risk demolition and removal.
The quit notice was given by the Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources Tokunbo Wahab when he led a high powered team that included the Chairman, Special Intervention Squad on the Restoration of the Lagos Badagry Rail Corridor Clean-Up, ACP Bayo Sulaiman and Special Adviser on the Environment, Kunle Rotimi-Akodu on an inspection of the Ijora and the under bridge.
Wahab lamented the security risk that the occupation of underneath the blue rail line bridge by mini buses, block moulders, fuel sellers and miscreants posed to the safe operation of the blue rail line service, saying government would not allow this to continue.
The Commissioner stated that the State Task Force on Special Offences would take full possession of the whole expanse of land under the Ijora Causeway Bridge and would be sustained by the state government.
He also gave a 24-hour quit notice to all those selling petroleum products under the Ijora Bridge to move all their trucks and containers or risk confiscation, adding that they posed enormous dangers to the infrastructure and human presence in the area.
The commissioner said no form of enforcement must be carried against distributors and sellers of styrofoam products until the expiration of the three weeks moratorium granted them.
He maintained that the three weeks window would allow all producers and distributors to mop up all the stock they have before the enforcement of the ban takes effect.
The Environment team was also at the Park View Estate in Ikoyi where a secondary collector has been infringed upon from the upstream by building across and fencing it off.
He directed the Drainage Enforcement and Compliance Department to serve proper notices to all the property owners asking them to give unfettered access to the state to monitor its secondary collectors and remove any impediments if any.
Wahab said monitoring and enforcement of the laws on the environment would be an everyday affair and that this explained why the ministry had picked up from where it stopped last year.
