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Lukman Olabiyi
The traders at the Police Officers Wives Associations (POWA) Shopping Complex Phase 2, Computer Village, Ikeja, Lagos have urged the Federal Government to come to their rescue over alleged economic hardship intended to be met on them.
The traders staged a protest at the weekend over alleged attempt by wife of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Fatima Muhammed Adamu, to demolish the ultra modern shopping complex they are using.
Adamu, who is the POWA president, in a letter dated August 29, addressed to the president of the traders, had told them to vacate the shopping complex to pave way for demolition and re-construction of the property.
The letter served on all the 105 occupants was written with POWA letterhead and signed by IGP’s wife, but the letter had no reference nor phone number.
The letter ordered occupants of the mentioned premises to vacate it within period of three months from the receipt of the letter to enable assigned contractor commence work.
The President of the shopping complex, Mr. Truth Onyenekwe, who led the protest, stated that the property was developed during the era of ex-IGP, Tafa Balogun, with their money.
According to him, it was money of the traders that was used to develop the property before allocating it to various POWA members who served as landladies that were collecting rent from them.
“After the initial amount we paid for the building of the shopping complex expired, we started paying our rent to our various landladies.
“Majority of these landladies had collected three years rent in advance and we don’t have issue with them. When we contacted them over this issue, they were shocked, saying they had no nothing with it.
“We believe IGP’s wife, Mrs Fatima Adamu, was misled on this issue. This is a structure that can still stand for 50 years with no defect. We maintain this building regularly with our money without waiting for the owners to come and do the needful.
“This plaza was beautified by us but suddenly we got an eviction notice. They said the plaza would be demolished and rebuilt within three months. We are not comfortable with that because there is nothing that guarantees our return. We have met with some authorities, who are concerned. But when another letter came that we must leave under three months, which ends in November, we thought it wise to let other Nigerians feel our plight. We are appealing to relevant authorities to do something about this.”
“We are law abiding citizens of this nation and we have been very cooperative with our landladies who have not given us any notice to vacate. When this came to us, it was a surprise because we don’t know where to go. We have made ourselves very clear that our rents are still running till 2023. We have bank facilities that we are servicing. If we are evicted, we would not be able to pay the loans that we took and take care of our families.
“We have about 105 shops and over 3,000 people working here. We have met our landladies, who unequivocally told us they were not ejecting us and that they didn’t even believe what we were telling them.”
Effort to speak with the Lagos Police Command spokesman, Bala Elkana and the Force PRO, Frank Mba, was unsuccessful. While Elkana did not pick a call to his phone, Mba’s was engaged when our correspondent called.
