Lagos State Government has reaffirmed its commitment to relocate the popular Computer Village in Ikeja, saying the move is to ensure the State physical planning is not distorted to avert disaster.
The State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr Gbenga Omotoso spoke on behalf of the State government during a one-on-one interview with journalists over the weekend in his office at Alausa, Ikeja.
The Commissioner noted that the traders have nothing to fear, saying none of them would have their shops lost in the new place they are being taken to.
The Government had given traders at the Computer Village in Ikeja an 18-month deadline to relocate to the new market site at Katangowa in the Agbado/Oke-Odo Local Council Development Area.
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development, Gbolahan Oki, announced this development recently during a stakeholders’ meeting with the traders and their executives at the market.
He explained that the Katangowa site, covering 15 hectares, had been fully prepared with the necessary facilities to make it conducive for business. The relocation, first proposed in 2006, had faced delays due to the slow pace of development work.
Oki added that the current location in Ikeja was originally a residential area that was converted into a trading hub without government approval.
He said the meeting was to carry the traders along in line with Governor Sanwo-Olu’s inclusive governance style and concern for citizens’ welfare.
While speaking on the issue, Omotoso noted, “It has to do with proper planning, and when the government goes into the place, people will also begin to sing the song of racism, they will also begin to parrot racism. Whereas disaster does not know any colour; disaster does not know any ethnic group, disaster does not know any religion. If you don’t plan well and then disaster comes, it attacks everybody so if you have a place like that and then the government comes in there to ensure that things are done properly, there are no cities anywhere in the world where we go and see the kind of things that we are seeing in some of the places that you guys are mentioning.
“I think the government was there about a month ago to do a kind of advocacy and to meet with the people and to tell them why they must move and where they are being taken to.
“I think the contractor working on it, is not moving fast enough and Mr Governor has directed that that contract should be terminated and given to another contractor who are totally doing very well now and then that is why we step on the advocacy to tell the people why they have to go to that place and to tell them that nobody is going to lose whatever he or she has in this market.
“So it’s just a question of a short time. The traders in Computer Village in Ikeja, we have to relocate them and there is another market at Katangowa in Abule-Egba.”
Speaking on the demolition exercise at Trade Fair along Lagos Badagry Expressway, the Commissioner maintained that those attributing the government action to ethnicity are ignorant of the law.
“It’s absurd. It’s unthinkable because Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu has provided us with service for about six years. And in those six years, nobody has come up to complain that he has had anything to do with any segregation like that, discrimination like that, in terms of religion, in terms of of ethnicity.
“We all know those things that they are talking about, discrimination. There are things that people who don’t even know us are talking about. People who don’t even live in Lagos. Some of those things that you see on the social media, you go and check out all of those who are perpetrating that, they are people who don’t live here, who live millions and millions of miles away.
“How can you build a house without permits? It’s not done anywhere. And the government said, look, you can’t do this. It is owned by the federal government. That’s fine. What the law says, according to the Supreme Court judgment of 2003, Attorney General of Lagos versus Attorney General of the Federation, supported by other states who came into the matter, is that, well, only the states have the permission, the rights, the powers to issue permits for anybody to go and do it. And that is the way it’s done all over the world,” Omotoso stated.
