80% of buildings in Lekki have no government approval, says commissioner

Oluyinka Olumide, commissioner for physical planning and urban development in Lagos, says 80 percent of buildings in the Ibeju Lekki-Epe corridor have no government approval.

The Lagos government has been facing backlash for the demolition of buildings and shanties across the state.

Tokunbo Wahab, commissioner for environment in Lagos, has repeatedly said the demolished structures were erected in contravention of the city’s masterplan, were never approved by the relevant agencies, and occluded drainage channels.

Punch reports Olumide as saying that despite the rigorous procedures involved in securing government approval, property developers and owners are still circumventing due process. 

“Just last Thursday and Friday, my team and I were in the Ibeju Lekki and Epe axis and you would agree that anybody passing through that corridor would see a lot of estates marked,” he said. 

“We went there, and I can tell you that from what we saw, over 80 percent of them do not have approval. 

“The procedure to get approval is first to get the planning information, as to what those areas have been zoned for. In this case, what we have is agricultural land, and people now go to their families to buy agricultural land.

“Of course, those lands would be sold because those families do not know the use such land would be put to.

“The next thing to do is the fence permit. If you missed the earlier information on not knowing the area zoning, at the point of getting the fence permit, you would be able to detect what the area is zoned for. After that, the layout permits a large expanse of land.

“So, you can see all these layers. But people still go ahead to start advertising. Some have even gone to the extent of displaying the sizes they want to sell. Imagine someone in the diaspora who wants to send money without any knowledge. 

“Then, no approval is eventually gotten. Even if they pass the assignment and the survey to them, we would not grant the individual permit, because that area is not zoned for that purpose.”

On Sunday, Wahab said owners of recently demolished property in Maryland had been served notices since 2021.

“We are not just doing demolitions. The law allows us to remove encumbrances on the right of way of the drainage channels,” Wahab said on Channels Television.