Lawyer and former Lagos commissioner, Muiz Banire, has flayed a situation where trespassers build on other people’s lands without authentic survey plan or building approval while government officials saddled with the responsibility of stopping such anomaly look the other way.
He said the development is not only absurd but deeply worrisome and the height of double standard.
He expressed the concern against the backdrop of the alarm raised by homeowners and land allottees in Alma Beach Estate, Lekki, Lagos, over ongoing construction of several buildings without government permit by suspected land grabbers terrorising the community with hired policemen and thugs.
The concerned homeowners and allottees have called for urgent intervention of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to stop the illegal activities of trespassers who they accused of distorting the estate master-plan with their indiscriminate building construction activities under the cover of darkness and police protection.
In a letter to the Lagos State Building Control Agency signed by Olumide Famuyiwa, the affected landowners alerted the regulatory body to the threat such development posed to residents and safety within the estate.
“We write to request the urgent intervention of your good office for stoppage of all ongoing illegal building construction works at Alma Beach Estate.
“These construction activities being undertaken without Lagos building permit have great potential to deface the entire neighbourhood and distort the Alma Beach Estate Master Plan (copy attached), which is lodged at the office of the Lagos State surveyor general.”
Reacting to the development, Banire said what the alleged land grabbers were doing could only happen where state officials have been induced and compromised.