The Lagos State Government has defended the demolition of illegal structures at the Trade Fair Complex, Ojo, insisting the exercise is technical and not targeted at any ethnic group.
Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Olumide Oluyinka, dismissed claims of ethnic victimisation during an interview on Thursday, stressing that similar enforcement actions had been carried out across Lagos, including Owode Onirin, Idumota, and Ikeja.
“This has no ethnic correlation. We just have to do our work. It is purely technical,” he said, adding that even traditional institutions on Lagos Island had been affected during past enforcement drives.
Oluyinka accused the Trade Fair Management of leasing land to private developers without following due process. He described the resulting developments as unsafe and poorly planned, citing a three-storey building located just two feet from the road kerb.
The commissioner said defaulters were given more than a year’s notice to regularise their structures, but many resisted enforcement. He recalled that government officers serving notices were detained and had to be freed by the police.
“It’s not new to them that we were coming. We gave defaulters time. They must keep by the law,” he stated.
Oluyinka lamented the poor state of infrastructure at the complex, noting that refuse, drainages, sewage, and walkways were in disrepair.
The demolition exercise, which began on September 25, was carried out by the Ministry of Physical Planning in collaboration with the Lagos State Building Control Agency, the Urban Renewal Agency, and the Physical Planning Permit Authority, with support from security agencies.
According to the government, the operation targeted illegal developments, defective structures, and buildings erected on road setbacks and drainages.
Two weeks earlier, the state suspended all reclamation projects across Lagos, citing environmental risks posed by indiscriminate activities on wetlands, floodplains, and lagoons.
