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• We’ll suffer monumental damage if project is rerouted to our community, they claim
By Kehinde Aderemi
Last Sunday, the Minister of Works, Senator David Umahi, and his team of officials from the Federal Ministry of Works held a special meeting with stakeholders, including royal fathers, residents, property owners and managers on buildings and land along the road corridor in Lagos State.
The meeting, held at the Orchid Hall of Eko Hotels and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos, was to intimate the public on the progress made so far on the ongoing Lagos-Calabar coaster highway, as well as efforts being put in place by the Federal Government to address pending issues and controversies generated by the ongoing project.
In his remarks, the minister said the Lagos-Calabar coaster road was one of the four legacy projects of the President Bola Tinubu administration, adding that the Federal Government was also committed to completing the project in due time.
Umahi, while expressing concern on the need to address the various problems associated with the construction of the coaster road, said majority of the people affected by the construction were being considered for immediate compensations, which according to him, was running into billions of naira.
He stated also that the Federal Government would also find possible means of reducing the burdens of those affected by the new coaster highway.
The minister restated the need for continuous engagements of those concerned, maintaining also that the stakeholders’ meeting, which he said was the fourth in its series, was an eye-opener, and one that had helped in boosting the relationship between the Federal Government representatives and stakeholders, recreating opportunities for both the government and the people to interact and agree on the best approach to solving the challenges faced in the course of the project.
“We are here to say thank you to all the stakeholders for their patience and endurance in ensuring that the ongoing project is successful,” he noted. “However, we are engaging you again for the fourth time since the beginning of this project because we believe there is need for us to address some salient issues that are affecting you as a people.
“We are not going to ignore the pains of the stakeholders. We are ready to address each of your complaints and any of the issues that came up in the course of doing this project,” the minister said.
But as the minister reaffirmed the readiness of the government to address the issues holistically, many of the residents and stakeholders seemed unhappy.
Their grudges, it was gathered, stemmed from the manner the Federal Government had been handling the issues.
The stakeholders, who are mainly property owners and community leaders, claimed they are aggrieved that they are about to lose all they had laboured for because of the Lagos-Calabar coaster highway.
Of note are the people of Okun-Ajah in Ibeju- Lekki Local Council Development Area of the state.
Community leaders, property owners and managers of landed properties in the area have been expressing their displeasure on the new development.
According to them, the Okun-Ajah area was originally gazetted to be a free community since 2003, at a time when President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu was the governor of Lagos State.
Okun Ajah, according to the people, has been a very serene community, which they claim is the reason residents and property owners have continued to invest in the development of the community.
They are unhappy that with the proposed diversion of the coastal road to the community, the people in Okun- Ajah will suffer and many will lose their landed properties that are now worth billions of naira.
A community leader and one of the stakeholders that attended the meeting held with the minister, Mr Ekundayo Shoyoye, said he was at the meeting with residents and land owners. But he regretted that he was not allowed to talk because he had some dissenting views about the issue raised at the meeting.
“We came for the stakeholders’ meeting to express our displeasure on the planned rerouting of the ongoing project to Okun-Ajah. But we were not allowed to talk on behalf of the people and residents of Okun-Ajah. That is why we are expressing our views by displaying different placards for the world to see.
“We are law-abiding citizens of Nigeria and we have raised similar issues at the stakeholders meeting but nobody was ready to listen to us. Our major concern is the rerouting of the road to our community and it would be a major disaster if the Federal Government ignores our plea because the rerouting would affect us in no small way.
“Our community, that is Okun-Ajah has, for more than two decades now, being a free community and many of us have our Certificates of Occupancy. We have all our documents, and they are genuine with evidence that the community had been gazetted as a free land.
“Now, there was a twist and the Federal Government is changing from its original plan, leaving those without documents and creating avoidable crisis with the rerouting of the road project to Okun-Ajah, without considering the pains and agonies it will cause to land owners that have invested all their lives in the community,” Shoyoye lamented.
Mrs.Wemimo Ajao, is one of those affected by the new order. She said she was born in Okun-Ajah more than 50 years ago.
Highlighting the extent of the damage and loss if the coaster road eventually gets rerouted to Okun-Ajah community,Ajao said the collateral damage could only be imagined.
Her words: “I have yet to figure out the extent of the damage or loss we would be subjected to with the rerouting of the coaster road to Okun-Ajah,” she said.
“That is why we are appealing to the Federal Government to save us from the impending huge loss,” Ajao said.
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