Ogun state is one of
the strongholds of new formed political party in Nigeria i.e. All progressive
Congress (APC) former member of
Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in
south western Nigeria and it state capital is at Abeokuta Ogun state. I believe if people that reside at: Ojodu berger, Akute, Lambe, Agbado, Sango and Ijoko Area , the conterminous towns between Ogun and Lagos state
had a premonition of Amosun lead government plan, they won’t have allow him to
gain access to state house.
However, I used to be
familiar with most of these affected areas and the whole place over the years
was devoid of any visible trait of development, abandoned and neglected by both
concerned states. The condition of infrastructure in these areas such as:
Roads, Water, Hospitals, Light, Schools and security network were all in sorry
state and pitiable condition. Majority of people living
in this area are lagosian but living in Ogun state territory.
Few years back the area
was mostly occupied by low income earners who could not afford ever dynamic
high cost of living in Lagos state especially the cost of rent. Over the years,
the major problem in this area is mostly of bad roads network that looms the
area which residents constantly witness heavy traffic congestion due to influx
or migration of more lagosian to these affected areas.
“Amosun lead
government recently commenced demolition of houses and other landed properties
to expand the road network to ease traffic movement and enhance economic
transformation of these areas. Good development and innovative move in a right
direction but with a clause”.
The essence of any democratic government is to reduce the suffering of her
citizens through formulation and implementation of testable policy that will
make the citizen to be better off nor worse off.
“This
decision taken by Ogun state government was a right decision but in a wrong
direction because this decision is questionable
and undemocratic”. What this means in a nutshell is that ,
this decision is not pareto efficient because this policy formulation and implementation by Ogun
state government in the short run, only few people are better off while
majority are worse off.
“This
decision is carried out on a questionable term, questionable because most of
these victims had suffered a great loss of investment due to failure of Ogun
state government to provide feasible town planning master plan that can justify
their destructive action all in the name of spontaneous development syndrome”.
Town planning
is very important in any sustainable society as this plan can help to forestall
this kind of occurrence, however, “town planning is futuristic and sustainable
but in a society where policy are formulated and implemented using military
approach apparatus such incident will always be experience”.
All these action of demolition by government would have being justify if there
is a well documented, legalized and put in public domain to justify this
project will take place in all these affected area in the nearest future. I
believe with this information known to the citizen, majority of these victims
wouldn’t have committed this erroneous act that has taken their lifetime
investment from them.
Government should be
able to look and plan for the future ahead of time at least 50years instead of
these massive destruction and displacement of innocent citizen to carried
project we are not even sure whether it is not going to be like some of those
abandoned projects will have all over the country as the execution of most of
these projects is to achieve political gain. “Hence, this action of Ogun state government is necessary but not
democratically justifiable. These are citizens of Nigeria; I think they demand
explanation and compensation from government for this act”.
It is no doubt that,
this action has disrupted business(s), displaced many families, destroyed many
investments, bring about societal confusion and even ends the life of some
family bread winners due to shock!
It is high time we
strengthen our town planning act beyond the moment and channel town planning
act to be futuristic to forestall this type of incident that can increase our
societal hills. This destruction by government of Ogun state is too massive and
unbearable for the affected citizens. “Government should intensify effort to put their town planning
development plans in a public domain, make it accessible by concern citizen so
that development plans of government will not coincide with that of the citizen”
I believe no matter the
amount of compensation given to these affected individual cannot heal the
social, economic and religious wound of this demolition. Having said this, Ogun
state government should be responsible and just enough to pay what is due to
all these concerned party regardless of their tribe, religion and political
affiliation with democratic transparency.
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