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My Maduka Nweke
Stakeholders have warned squatters who reside under bridges across the state and return after they have been evicted by government officials, to think about their lives and safety.
One of the stakeholders, Mr. Andrew Okebukola, said that those living or doing business under the bridges can be affected by crashes.
He said: “If you want to maintain the bridge as your home or office or workshop, you should remember that bridges could defect and start releasing their particles. Such is very dangerous to human life.”
Another expert, Mrs Eunice Okonedo, narrated how an artisan who used the bridge as his workshop died as a result of fire emanating from electrical faults on one of the pillars where the street light was attached. “Sometime some people do not see useful advice as useful and by the time they will realize it, it would be late,” she stated.
Recently, the Lagos state government issued a five days’ notice to squatters under the Ijora causeway bridge and Lagos blue rail line overhead bridge. The government directed them to remove all their shanties for constituting a danger to the Lagos blue line corridor or risk demolition and removal. Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, gave the notice when he led a team on an inspection of the area.
Wahab who lamented the security risk that the occupation of the underneath of 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, said the government would not allow such 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 hours 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 danger to the infrastructure and human presence in the area. Wahab reiterated that no form of enforcement must be carried out against distributors and sellers of styrofoam products until the expiration of the three weeks moratorium granted to them.
