By Christopher Oji
The Lagos State House of Assembly is set to investigate the diversion of the ongoing construction of the Lagos-Calabar coastal road in the Okun Ajah community in Eti Osa Local Government Area of Lagos State
This was disclosed on Tuesday by Hon. Femi Saheed, the lawmaker representing Kosofe Constituency 2 at the Lagos State House of Assembly, during a peaceful protest by indigenes and residents of the community, who were at the Lagos State House of Assembly Complex in their hundreds.
The assembly also assured the protesters that their grievances would be looked into and it would ensure that they get justice.
Saheed said, “It is always in our culture to intervene, to intercede and to stand with the masses. You have genuine cases. Lagos State has a master plan. The honourable minister of works told you reliably that the earmarked alignment for coastal road is going to be maintained. We will still stand by that.”
The assemblyman assured the protesters that the lawmakers would look into the matter: “Be rest assured that the critical stakeholders in your community will be duly invited to come and submit their position and with that we can come to the round table and agree on a position that will be favourable to all.”
Saheed explained that, “What we do at the Lagos House is to ensure that we intercede on behalf of the people and the government. We are not going to renege on that now.”
The lawmaker said the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly would get justice for the residents.
An indigene and community leader in Okun Ajah, Yussuf Olatunji, while speaking on behalf of the protesters, said, “Our agitation is for the minister of works to keep to the 2006 coastal road alignment. In 2006, former governor and now President Bola Ahmed presented the people of Okun Ajah with a certificate of occupancy of the community and there was a gazetted alignment for coastal road.
“When the road started now from kilometer 0- 17, they maintained the coastal road alignment in the ongoing construction, but from kilometer 17-22, which is our community, they deviated from the gazetted alignment without giving any reason.
“At the last stakeholders’ meeting at Eko Hotel, the minister of works said it openly that he would return to the 2006 coastal road alignment but, yesterday, they came into the community again and started marking buildings that are not part of the alignment.
He maintained that most of the people who built houses along the space earlier earmarked for the coastal road were from Ebonyi State, alleging that the minister, a former governor of Ebonyi State, was “playing the ethnic card with a federal government project in Lagos.”
The community leader also condemned the intimidation and harassment of residents and homeowners by soldiers, who were brought into the community by officials of the ministry of works.
Another resident, Alhaja Memunat Ologunro, also bemoaned the fate of hundreds of residents who would be affected by the deviation from the coastal road alignment of 2006.
She said, “The minister told all of us at the meeting that he was going back to the 2006 alignment. Only for his men to come again and deviate from the alignment.”
Alhaja Ologunro also advised that the minister should save the community by maintaining the 2006 alignment or move to the ocean side as a way of preventing the community from being submerged by the ocean: “This an opportunity to save the community from the ocean by filling the shoreline and constructing the coastal road there. We have been to other countries. Their coastal roads are near the ocean. Why would they bring our own to the middle of the town?”